The Notebooks of Samuel Taylor Coleridge VOLUME 4 NOTES
THE NOTEBOOKS OF Samuel Taylor Coleridge Edited by Kathleen C...
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The Notebooks of Samuel Taylor Coleridge VOLUME 4 NOTES
THE NOTEBOOKS OF Samuel Taylor Coleridge Edited by Kathleen Coburn and Merton Christensen VOLUME 4 1819–1826 NOTES
ROUTLEDGE LONDON
FIRST PUBLISHED 1990 BY ROUTLEDGE 11 NEW FETTER LANE, LONDON EC4P 4EE 29 WEST 35TH STREET, NEW YORK, NY 1000 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2006.
“ To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to http://www.ebookstore.tandf.co.uk/.”
© 1989 KATHLEEN COBURN, MERTON CHRISTENSEN
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO PART OF THIS BOOK MAY BE REPRINTED OR REPRODUCED OR UTILIZED IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY ELECTRONIC, MECHANICAL, OR OTHER MEANS, NOW KNOWN OR HEREAFTER INVENTED, INCLUDING PHOTOCOPYING AND RECORDING, OR IN ANY INFORMATION STORAGE OR RETRIEVAL SYSTEM, WITHOUT PERMISSION IN WRITING FROM THE PUBLISHERS. BRITISH LIBRARY CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION DATA COLERIDGE, SAMUEL TAYLOR, 1772–1834 THE NOTEBOOK OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE VOL. 4, 1819– 1926. I. POETRY IN ENGLISH, COLERIDGE, SAMUEL TAYLOR, 1772–1834 CORRESPONDENCE I. TITLE II. COBURN, KATHLEEN III. CHRISTENSEN, MERTON
821′.7 ISBN 0-203-16786-4 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-28350-3 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-04429-4 (Print Edition) 1
CONTENTS ABBREVIATIONS AND CONTRACTIONS
v
GENERAL NOTES ON EACH NOTEBOOK
xviii
Notebook 26
xix
Notebook 28
xxi
Notebook 30
xiii
Notebook 60
xxv
Folio Notebook
xxvi
NOTES ON THE NOTEBOOKS: 1819–1826 Entries 4505–5471
1
APPENDIX A: A List of Coleridge’s Symbols
588
THE NOTEBOOK TABLES
592
INDEXES
627
1 Names of Persons
628
2 Selected Titles
732
3 Place-Names
746
ABBREVIATIONS AND CONTRACTIONS Aesthetic Education
J.C.F.Schiller On the Aesthetic Education of Man ed & tr Elizabeth Wilkinson and L.A.Willoughby (Oxford 1967).
Allsop
Letters, Conversations and Recollections of S.T.Coleridge ed Thomas Allsop (2 vols London 1836).
Allston Life
The Life and Letters of Washington Allston J.B.Flagg (New York 1892).
ALZ
Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung (Jena; Leipzig 1785–1849).
An Anthol
The Annual Anthology (2 vols Bristol 1799–1800).
An Reg
Annual Register (London 1758–).
An Rev
Annual Review and History of Literature (London 1803– 18).
AP
Anima Poetae from the unpublished notebooks of Samuel Taylor Coleridge ed E.H.Coleridge (London 1895).
AP (Keats H)
A copy of Anima Poetae in Keats House, Hampstead, annotated by several hands.
Appleyard
J.A.Appleyard Coleridge’s Philosophy of Literature (Cambridge, Mass. 1965).
APR
A.P.Rossiter.
AR
Aids to Reflection in the formation of a manly character on the several grounds of prudence, morality and religion, illustrated by select passages from our elder divines, especially from Archbishop Leighton S.T.Coleridge (London 1825).
Archiv
Archiv für den thierischen Magnetismus ed. C.A.Eschenmayer, D.D.Kieser and F.Nasse (12 vols Altenburg and Leipzig 1817–24).
Asra
“Coleridge and ‘Asra’ “T.M.Raysor Studies in Philology xxvi (1929) 305–24.
Bald
R.C.Bald “Coleridge and The Ancient Mariner” Nineteenth Century Studies ed Herbert Davis, W.C.De Vane, and R. C.Bald (Ithaca, N.Y. 1940).
BCP
Book of Common Prayer.
B Critic
The British Critic (London May 1793–1843).
BE
Biographia Epistolaris S.T.Coleridge ed A.Turnbull (2 vols London 1911).
BL
Biographia Literaria S.T.Coleridge ed John Shawcross (2 vols Oxford 1907).
BL (1817)
Biographia Literaria S.T.Coleridge (2 vols London 1817).
BL (1847)
Biographia Literaria S.T.Coleridge ed H.N. and Sara Coleridge (2 vols London 1847).
BL (CC)
Biographia Literaria S.T.Coleridge ed James Engell and W.Jackson Bate (2 vols Bollingen Series LXXV London and Princeton 1982).
Blackwell SC
Blackwell Sale Catalogue.
Blackwood’s
Blackwood’s Magazine (Edinburgh and London Ap 1817– ).
Blumenbach Handbuch
J.F.Blumenbach Handbuch der Naturgeschichte (Göttingen 1779).
BM
British Museum.
Boehme Works
Jakob Boehme The Works of Jacob Behmen…To which is prefixed, The Life of the Author. With figures, illustrating his Principles, left by the Reverend William Law (1764– 81).
Botanic Garden
The Botanic Garden Erasmus Darwin (2 vols London 1794–5).
B Poets
The Works of the British Poets ed Robert Anderson (13 vols Edinburgh 1792–5; vol 14 issued 1807).
Brande Manual
W.T.Brande Manual of Chemistry (1819).
Brandl
A.L.Brandl “S.T.Coleridge’s Notizbuch aus den Jahren 1795–1798” in Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen XCVII (1896) 333–72.
Bristol Borrowings
“The Bristol Library Borrowings of Southey and Coleridge, 1793–8” George Whalley The Library IV (Sept 1949) 114–31.
C&S
On the Constitution of Church and State, according to the Idea of Each with aids toward a right judgment on the late bill S.T. Coleridge (London 1830).
C&S (CC)
On the Constitution of the Church and State S.T.Coleridge ed John Colmer (Bollingen Series LXXV London and Princeton 1976).
C&SH
Coleridge and Sara Hutchinson and the Asra Poems George Whalley (London 1955).
C&S in Bristol
“Coleridge and Southey in Bristol, 1795” George Whalley Review of English Studies NS I (Oct 1950) 333.
Carlyon
Clement Carlyon Early Years and Late Reflections (4 vols London 1836–58).
C at Highgate
Coleridge at Highgate L.E. (G.) Watson (London and New York 1925).
CBEL
The Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature ed F.W. Bateson (5 vols Cambridge 1940–57).
CC
The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Bollingen Series LXXV London & Princeton 1969–).
C Concordance
A Concordance to the Poetry of Samuel Taylor Coleridge ed Sister Eugenia Logan (Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Ind. 1940).
Chambers
E.K.Chambers Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Oxford 1938).
CIS
Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit S.T.Coleridge ed H.N. Coleridge (1840).
CIS (1849)
Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit S.T.Coleridge with introduction by J.H.Green ed Sara Coleridge (1849).
CL
Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge ed. E.L.Griggs (Oxford and New York 1956–).
C Life
Samuel Taylor Coleridge: a Narrative of the Events of his Life J.D.Campbell (London 1894).
CM
Marginalia S.T.Coleridge ed George Whalley (5 vols Bollingen Series LXXV London and Princeton 1980–).
CN
The Notebooks of Samuel Taylor Coleridge ed Kathleen Coburn (New York and London 1957–).
Coburn Experience into Thought
Kathleen Coburn Experience into Thought: Perspectives in the Coleridge Notebooks (Toronto 1979).
Coburn “Restraint”
Kathleen Coburn “Coleridge and Restraint” (University of Toronto Quarterly 1969).
Coburn SC Imagination
Kathleen Coburn The Self-Conscious Imagination (Oxford 1974).
Coleorton
Memorials of Coleorton ed William Knight (2 vols Edinburgh 1887).
Cornell Studies
Some Letters of the Wordsworth Family…with a few unpublished letters of Coleridge and Southey and others ed Leslie Na-than Broughton. Cornell Studies in English XXXII (Ithaca, N.Y. 1942).
COS
Coleridge on Shakespeare. The text of the lectures of 1811–12 ed. R.A.Foakes (London 1971).
Cottle (E Rec)
Joseph Cottle Early Recollections; chiefly relating to the late Samuel Taylor Coleridge, during his long residence in Bristol (2 vols London 1837–39).
Cottle (Rem)
Joseph Cottle Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey (London 1847).
CRBooks
H.C.Robinson on Books and their Writers ed. E.J.Morley (3 vols London 1938).
CRC
The Correspondence of Henry Crabb Robinson with the Wordsworth Circle ed E.J.Morley (2 vols Oxford 1927).
CR Diary
Diary, Reminiscences and Correspondence of Henry Crabb Robinson ed Thomas Sadler (Boston 1869).
Creuzer Symbolik
G.F.Creuzer Symbolik und Mythologie der alten Völker (4 vols Leipzig 1810–12).
Creuzer Symbolik
G.F.Creuzer Symbolik und Mythologie der alten Völker (6 vols Leipzig and Darmstadt 1819–23).
Cr Reυ
The Critical Review, or, Annals of Literature (London 1756–1817).
C 17th C
Coleridge on the Seventeenth Century ed R.F.Brinkley (Durham, N.C. 1955).
C Talker
Coleridge the Talker: A Series of Contemporary Descriptions and Comments ed Richard W.Armour and Raymond F.Howes (Ithaca, N.Y. 1940).
C Works
The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge ed [W.G.T] Shedd (7 vols New York 1853).
DCL
Dove Cottage Library.
De Q Works
The Collected Writings of Thomas De Quincey ed David Masson (14 vols Edinburgh 1889–90).
Diels
Hermann Diels Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker.
D Life
The Life of Sir Humphry Davy J.A.Paris (2 vols London 1831).
D Life 4°
The Life of Sir Humphry Davy J.A.Paris (I vol 4° London 1831).
D Memoirs
Memoirs of the Life of Sir Humphry Davy John Davy (London 1839).
DNB
Dictionary of National Biography (London 1885–).
D Rem
Fragmentary Remains, Literary and Scientific of Sir Humphry Davy, with a Sketch of his Life ed John Davy (London 1858).
DW
Dorothy Wordsworth.
DW (de S)
Dorothy Wordsworth Ernest de Selincourt (Oxford 1933).
DWJ
Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth ed Ernest de Selincourt (2 vols Oxford 1939).
D Works
The Collected Works of Sir Humphry Davy ed John Davy (9 vols London 1839–41).
E&S
Essays and Studies by Members of the English Association (London 1910–).
EB
Encyclopaedia Britannica.
EC
Edward Coleridge.
EDD
English Dialect Dictionary ed Joseph Wright (6 vols London and New York 1898–1905).
Ed Reυ
The Edinburgh Review (Edinburgh and London October 1802–1929).
EHC
Ernest Hartley Coleridge.
Eichhorn ABbLitt
J.G.Eichhorn ed Allgemeine Bibliothek der biblischen Litteratur (10 vols Leipzig 1789–1800).
Eichhorn Apocal
J.G.Eichhorn Commentarius in Apocalypsin Joannis (2 vols Göttingen 1791)
Eichhorn Apok
J.G.Eichhorn Einleitung in die apokryphischen Schriften des Alten Testaments (Leipzig 1795).
Eichhorn AT
J.G.Eichhorn Einleitung ins Alte Testament (3 vols Leipzig 1787).
Eichhorn NT (A)
J.G.Eichhorn Einleitung in das Neue Testament (3 vols Leipzig 1803, 1810–11, 1812–14) Coleridge’s Copy A.
Eichhorn NT (B)
J.G.Eichhorn Einleitung in das Neue Testament (3 vols Leipzig 1803, 1810–11, 1812–14) Coleridge’s Copy B.
Eng Div
Notes on English Divines S.T.Coleridge ed Derwent Coleridge (2 vols London 1853).
Eng Poets
The Works of the English Poets from Chaucer to Cowper ed Alexander Chalmers (21 vols London 1810).
EOT
Essays on his Own Times forming a second series of The Friend S.T.Coleridge ed Sara Coleridge (3 vols London 1850).
EOT (CC)
Essays on His Times S.T.Coleridge ed David V.Erdman (3 vols Bollingen Series LXXV London and Princeton 1976).
Estimate of WW
Estimate of William Wordsworth by his Contemporaries ed Elsie Smith (Oxford 1932).
Estlin
“Unpublished Letters from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to the Rev. John Prior Estlin” Philobiblon Society Miscellanies XV (London 1884).
Friend (1809–10)
The Friend, a Literary, Moral and Political Weekly Paper conducted by S.T.Coleridge (Penrith 1809–10 in numbers).
Friend (1812)
The Friend, a series of essays S.T.Coleridge (London, 1812).
Friend (1818)
The Friend, a series of essays S.T.Coleridge (3 vols 1818).
The Friend (CC)
The Friend S.T.Coleridge ed B.E.Rooke (2 vols Bollingen Series LXXV London and Princeton 1969).
Friend (R)
The Friend, a critical edition of the three versions (MS) ed B.E.Rooke.
Gent Mag
Gentleman’s Magazine.
Gillman
James Gillman Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Vol I [all published] London 1838).
Gillman SC
Catalogue of a “valuable collection of books, including the
library of James Gillman, Esq. (Henry Southgate, London [1843]). Godwin (Brown)
Life of William Godwin F.K.Brown (London 1926).
Godwin (MS Diary)
Transcript by Dr. Lewis Patton from a microfilm in Duke University Library of the MS diary of William Godwin owned by Lord Abinger.
Godwin (Paul)
William Godwin, his Friends and Contemporaries C.K.Paul (London 1876).
Godwin SC (1836)
Catalogue of the Curious Library of…William Godwin (Sotheby, London 1836).
Göttingen Borrowings
“Books borrowed by Coleridge from the library of the University of Göttingen, 1799” A.D.Snyder Modern Philology XXV (1928) 377–80.
Green SC
Catalogue of the Library of Joseph Henry Green which will be sold by auction Sotheby, Wilkinson and Hodge (London July 1880).
Grimm
J.L.C.Grimm and W.C.Grimm Deutsches Wörterbuch (16 vols Leipzig 1854–1954).
Haney
J.L.Haney A Bibliography of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Philadelphia 1903).
Hansard
T.C.Hansard publ Parliamentary Debates from the Year 1803 to the Present Time (14 vols 1812–20).
Hanson
Lawrence Hanson The Life of S.T.Coleridge, the Early Years (London 1938).
HC Letters
Hartley Coleridge Letters of Hartley Coleridge ed G.E. Griggs and E.L.Griggs (London 1936).
HC Poems
Hartley Coleridge Poems with a Memoir by his Brother ed Derwent Coleridge (1851).
HCR
Henry Crabb Robinson.
Heber
Reginald Heber (editor) The Whole Works of Jeremy Taylor with a Life of the Author and a Critical Examination of his Writings (10 vols London 1883).
HEHL
Henry E.Huntington Library and Art Gallery, San Marino, Calif.
HEHLB
Henry E.Huntington Library and Art Gallery, San Marino, Calif. Huntington Library Bulletin (II nos Cambridge, Mass. 1931–37).
HEHLQ
The Huntington Library Quarterly (San Marino, Calif. 1937–).
HLB
Harυard Library Bulletin (Cambridge, Mass. 1947).
H Life (Howe)
The Life of William Hazlitt P.P.Howe (revised edition London and New York 1928).
HNC
Henry Nelson Coleridge.
House
Humphrey House Coleridge (London 1953).
House of Letters
A House of Letters, being excerpts from the correspondence of …Coleridge, Lamb, Southey…with Matilda Betham ed Ernest Betham (Second edition London [1905]).
HUL
Harvard University Library (and the Houghton Library).
Hutchinson
William Hutchinson The History of the County of Cumberland (2 vols Carlisle 1794).
H Works
The Complete Works of William Hazlitt ed P.P.Howe (21 vols London 1930–4).
Inq Sp
Inquiring Spirit; a new presentation of Coleridge from his published and unpublished prose writings ed Kathleen Coburn (London and New York 1951).
IS (1979)
Inquiring Spirit; a new presentation of Coleridge from his published and unpublished prose writings ed Kathleen Coburn (2nd rev ed Toronto 1979).
JDC
James Dykes Campbell.
JEGP
Journal of English and Germanic Philology (Bloomington, 111. 1897–).
JTC
John Taylor Coleridge.
JW
John Wordsworth.
K&S
William Kirby and William Spence An Introduction to Entomology (4 vols 1815, 1817, 1826).
Kant KpV
Immanuel Kant Kritik der praktischen Vernunft (Riga 1797).
Kant KrV
Immanuel Kant Kritik der reinen Vernunft (Leipzig 1799).
Kant VS
Immanuel Kant Vermischte Schriften (4 vols Halle 1799).
K Letters (Rollins)
The Letters of John Keats 1814–1821 ed H.E.Rollins (2 vols Cambridge, Mass. 1958).
L
Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge ed E.H.Coleridge (2 vols London 1895).
L&L
Coleridge on Logic and Learning ed A.D.Snyder (London 1929).
LB
Lyrical Ballads with a few other Poems [By William Wordsworth and S.T.Coleridge] (Bristol and London 1798).
LB (1800)
Lyrical Ballads with other Poems William Wordsworth [and S.T.Coleridge] (Second edition 2 vols London 1800).
LCL
Loeb Classical Library.
Lects 1795 (CC)
Lectures 1795: On Politics and Religion S.T.Coleridge ed Lewis Patton and Peter Mann (Bollingen Series LXXV London and Princeton 1970).
L Lects (CC)
Lectures on Literature 1808–19 S.T.Coleridge ed R.A. Foakes (2 vols Bollingen Series LXXV London and Princeton), in preparation.
L Letters
The Letters of Charles Lamb to which are added those of his sister Mary Lamb ed E.V.Lucas (3 vols London 1935).
L Letters (1976)
The Letters of Charles and Mary Lamb ed E.W.Marrs Jr (3 vols Ithaca and London 1976).
L Life
Life of Charles Lamb E.V.Lucas (London 1921).
LLP
Letters from the Lake Poets to Daniel Stuart [ed Mary Stuart and E.H.Coleridge] (London 1889).
LMLA
The London Monthly Literary Advertiser (1805–28).
Logic
Coleridge on Logic and Learning ed A.D.Snyder (London 1929).
Logic (CC)
Logic S.T.Coleridge ed J.R. de J.Jackson (Bollingen Series LXXV London and Princeton 1981).
Logic (MS)
BM Egerton MSS 2825, 2826.
LR
The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge ed H.N. Coleridge (London 1836–9).
LS
A Lay Sermon addressed to the higher and middle classes on the existing distresses and discontents S.T.Coleridge (London 1817).
LS (CC)
A Lay Sermon S.T.Coleridge ed R.J.White. In Lay Sermons (Bollingen Series LXXV London and Princeton 1972).
L Works
The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb ed E.V.Lucas (6 vols London 1912).
Margoliouth
H.M.Margoliouth Wordsworth and Coleridge, 1795–1834 (London and New York 1953).
MC
Coleridge’s Miscellaneous Criticism ed T.M.Raysor (London 1936).
McFarland CPT
Thomas McFarland Coleridge and the Pantheist Tradition (Oxford 1969).
M Chronicle
The Morning Chronicle (London 1770–1862).
Meteyard
Eliza Meteyard A Group of Englishmen (London 1871).
Method
S.T. Coleridge’s Treatise on Method as published in the Encylopaedia Metropolitana ed A.D.Snyder (London 1934).
Migne PG
Patrologiae cursus completus…Series Graeca (162 vols Paris 1857–1912).
Migne PL
Patrologiae cursus completus…Series Latina ed J.P.Migne (221 vols Paris 1844–64).
Minnow Among Tritons
Minnow Among Tritons; Mrs. S.T.Coleridge’s letters to Thomas Poole, 1799–1834 ed Stephen Potter (London
1934). Miscellanies
Miscellanies, Aesthetic and Literary; to which is added “The Theory of Life” S.T.Coleridge ed T.Ashe (London 1885).
MLN
Modern Language Notes (Baltimore 1886–).
MLR
Modern Language Review (Cambridge 1905–).
M Memoirs
Memoirs of the Life of Sir James Mackintosh ed R.J.Mackintosh (Second edition 2 vols London 1836).
Mod Philol
Modern Philology (Chicago 1903–).
Mon Mag
The Monthly Magazine and British Register (London Feb 1796–1843).
Mon Reυ
The Monthly Review; or, Literary Journal (London 1749– 1844).
M Post
The Morning Post (London 1772–).
MS Journal
A journal of Coleridge’s visit to Germany, a foolscap MS in his holograph (intermediate between the entries in the notebooks and “Satyrane’s letters”, much of it used in letters to his wife, Poole, and Josiah Wedgwood. Once owned by Gabriel Wells of New York), now in the Berg Collection, NYPL.
MW
Mary (Mrs.) Wordsworth.
N
Notebook of Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
N&Q
Notes and Queries (London 1849–).
NBU
Nouυelle Biographie universelle (46 vols Paris 1852–66).
NEB
The New English Bible (Oxford and Cambridge 1964).
Nicholson’s Journal
A Journal of Natural Philosophy, Chemistry and the Arts ed William Nicholson (London 1797–1813).
Notes Theol
Notes, Theological, Political and Miscellaneous S.T.Coleridge ed Derwent Coleridge (London 1853).
NT
New Testament.
NYPL
New York Public Library.
OCD
The Oxford Classical Dictionary (Oxford 1949).
ODCC
The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church ed F.L.Cross (London 1957).
ODEE
The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology ed C.T.Onions with G.W.S.Friedrichsen and R.W.Burchfield (Oxford 1966).
ODNR
The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes ed I. and P.Opie (Oxford 1951).
OED
Oxford English Dictionary (13 vols Oxford 1933).
Oken Erste Ideen
Lorenz Oken Erste Ideen zur Theorie des Lichts…und der
Wärme (Jena 1808). Oken Naturgeschichte
Lorenz Oken Lehrbuch der Naturgeschichte (6 vols Jena 1816–26).
Omniana
Omniana [ed Robert Southey with articles by S.T.Coleridge] (2 vols London 1812).
Omniana (Ashe)
The Table Talk and Omniana of Samuel Taylor Coleridge ed T.Ashe (London 1884).
Op Max (CC)
Opus Maximum S.T.Coleridge ed Thomas McFarland (Bollingen Series LXXV London and Princeton), in preparation.
Op Max (MS)
Opus Maximum S.T.Coleridge. MSS in HEHL and VCL.
OT
Old Testament.
Phil Lects
The Philosophical Lectures of Samuel Taylor Coleridge ed Kathleen Coburn (London and New York 1949).
Phil Mag
The Philosophical Magazine (London 1798–).
Phil Trans
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (London 1665–1886).
Phil Trans (Abr)
The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society Abridgement ed C.Hutton, R.Pearson, and G.Shaw (London 1792–1809).
Philol Q
Philological Quarterly (Iowa City 1922–).
P Lects (CC)
Lectures 1818–1819; On the History of Philosophy ed Owen Barfield and Kathleen Coburn (Bollingen Series xxv London and Princeton), in preparation.
PML
Pierpont Morgan Library, New York City.
PMLA
Publications of the Modern Language Association (Baltimore 1886–).
Poems 1796
Poems on Various Subjects S.T.Coleridge (Bristol 1796).
Poems 1797
Poems by S.T.Coleridge, second edition, to which are now added Poems by Charles Lamb and Charles Lloyd (Bristol and London 1797).
Poole
Thomas Poole and his Friends M.E. (P). Sandford (2 vols London 1888).
Prelude
The Prelude or Growth of a Poet’s Mind William Wordsworth ed Ernest de Selincourt (Oxford 1926).
PW
The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge ed E.H.Coleridge (2 vols Oxford 1912).
PW (JDC)
The Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge ed with a biographical introduction by J.D.Campbell (London and New York 1893).
QJSLA
The Quarterly Journal of Science, Literature and the Arts (Royal Institution of Great Britain 1817–1827).
QR
The Quarterly Review (London 1809–).
“Reflexions”
“Some Reflexions in a Coleridge Mirror” Kathleen Coburn From Sensibility to Romanticism ed F.W.Hilles and Harold Bloom (New York 1965).
RES
Review of English Studies (London 1925–).
Rickman
Lamb’s Friend the Census-Taker. Life and Letters of John Rickman Orlo Williams (London 1912).
RS
Robert Southey.
RSL
The Royal Society of Literature.
RS SC
Catalogue of the Valuable Library of the Late Robert Southey, Esq. LL.D.Poet Laureate (London 1844).
RX
The Road to Xanadu J.L.Lowes (revised edition London 1930).
SC
Sara Coleridge (Mrs. H.N.Coleridge).
SCB
Southey’s Common-Place Book ed. J.W.Warter (4 vols London 1849–51).
Schelling Einleitung
F.W.J.Schelling Einleitung zu einem Entwurf eines Systems der Naturphilosophie (Jena and Leipzig 1799).
Schelling Naturphilosophie
F.W.J.Schelling Erster Entwurf eines Systems der Naturphi-losophie (Jena and Leipzig 1799).
Schelling Tr Id
F.W.J.Schelling System des transcendentalen Idealismus (Leipzig 1800).
Schneider
Elisabeth Schneider Coleridge, Opium and Kubla Khan (Chicago 1953).
SC Memoir
Memoir and Letters of Sara Coleridge [ed Edith Coleridge] (Second edition 2 vols London 1873).
Select P&P
Select Poetry and Prose S.T.Coleridge ed Stephen Potter (London 1933).
SH
Sarah Hutchinson.
ShC
Coleridge’s Shakespearean Criticism ed T.M.Raysor (2 vols London 1930).
SH Letters
The Letters of Sara Hutchinson ed Kathleen Coburn (London and Toronto 1954).
SL
Sibylline Leaves S.T.Coleridge (London 1817).
S Letters (Curry)
New Letters of Robert Southey ed Kenneth Curry (2 vols New York and London 1965).
S Letters (Warter)
Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey ed J.W. Warter (4 vols London 1856).
S Life and C
Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey ed C.C.Southey (6 vols London 1849–50).
SM
The Statesman’s Manual; or The Bible the Best Guide to
Political Skill and Foresight; A Lay Sermon S.T.Coleridge (London 1816). SM:LS (CC)
The Statesmans Manual S.T.Coleridge ed R.J.White. In Lay Sermons (Bollingen Series LXXV London and Princeton 1972).
Steffens Beyträge
Heinrich Steffens Beyträge zur innern Naturgeschichte der Erde (Freiberg 1801).
Steffens Caricaturen
Heinrich Steffens Caricaturen des Heiligsten (2 vols Leipzig 1819, 1821).
Steffens G-g Aufsätze
Heinrich Steffens Geognostisch-geologische Aufsätze als Vorbereitung zu einer innem Naturgeschichte der Erde (Hamburg 1810).
Steffens Grundzüge
Heinrich Steffens Grundzüge der philosophischen Naturwissen-schaft (Berlin 1806).
Studies (Blunden & Griggs)
Coleridge: Studies by Several Hands on the Hundredth Anniversary of his Death ed Edmund Blunden and E.L.Griggs (London 1934).
Stud Philol
Studies in Philology (Chapel Hill, N.C. 1906–).
SWF
Shorter Works and Fragments S.T.Coleridge ed H.J. and J.R. de J.Jackson (Bollingen Series LXXV London and Princeton) in preparation.
Tennemann
W.G.Tennemann Geschichte der Philosophie (12 vols Leipzig 1798–1819).
Theol Lects
Theological Lectures, S.T.Coleridge (Bristol 1795 MS transcript by E.H.Coleridge, in VCL).
TL
Hints towards the Formation of a more Comprehensive Theory of Life S.T.Coleridge ed S.B.Watson (London 1848).
TLS
The Times Literary Supplement (London 1902–).
Toland
John Toland (editor) A Complete Collection of the Historical, Political and Miscellaneous Works of Milton (3 vols London 1694–8).
TT
Specimens of the Table Talk of the late Samuel Taylor Coleridge ed H.N.Coleridge (2 vols London 1835).
TT
(Ashe) The Table Talk and Omniana of Samuel Taylor Coleridge ed T.Ashe (London 1884).
TT (CC)
Table Talk S.T.Coleridge ed Carl R.Woodring (Bollingen Series LXXV London and Princeton), in preparation.
TT (MS)
Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge (additions, in the MS of H.N.Coleridge in VCL).
UL
Unpublished Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge ed E.L. Griggs (2 vols London 1932).
UTQ
University of Toronto Quarterly (Toronto 1931–).
VCL
Victoria College Library, University of Toronto.
Watchman
The Watchman S.T.Coleridge (Bristol 1796).
Watchman (CC)
The Watchman S.T.Coleridge ed Lewis Patton (Bollingen Series LXXV London and Princeton 1970).
W Circle
The Wordsworth Circle (Washington D.C. 1970–).
Wedguoood
Tom Wedgwood, the First Photographer R.B.Litchfield (London 1903).
W Letters (E)
The Early Letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth ed Ernest de Selincourt (Oxford 1935).
W Letters (L)
Letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth; the Later Years ed Ernest de Selincourt (3 vols Oxford 1939).
W Letters (M)
Letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth; the Middle Years ed Ernest de Selincourt (2 vols Oxford 1937).
W Life
William Wordsworth: a Biography Mary Moorman (2 vols Oxford 1957–65).
Wordsworth & Coleridge
Wordsworth & Coleridge: Studies in honor of George McLean Harper ed E.L.Griggs (Princeton 1939).
Wordsworth LC
Wordsworth Library Catalogue (HUL MS).
Wordsworth SC
Catalogue of the…library of…William Wordsworth (Preston 1859).
W Poems (1815)
Poems by William Wordsworth; including Lyrical Ballads… with additional poems, a new preface, and a supplementary essay (2 vols London 1815).
WPW
The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth ed Ernest de Selincourt and Helen Darbishire (5 vols Oxford 1940–9).
WPW (Knight)
The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth ed W.A.Knight (8 vols London 1896).
WW
William Wordsworth.
GENERAL NOTES ON EACH NOTEBOOK For the General Notes on Notebooks 1, 2, 3, 3½, 4, 5, 5½, 6, 7, 8, 10, 16, 21, 22, and the Gutch Notebook, see CN I: Notes xvii–xlv. For the General Notes on Notebooks 9, 11, 12, 15, 17, 18, 19, 23, 24, and K, see CN II: Notes xix–xxxiv. For the General Notes on Notebooks 13, 14, 20, 21½, 22 (an Addendum), 25, 27, 29, 61, 62, 63, L, M, N, and P, see CN III: Notes xxi–xxxv.
NOTEBOOK 26 BM Add MS 47,524
BM Add MS 47,524 COVER Brown leather, with clasp now broken. On the front cover is written in black ink “A 1826–1827”. There is inside the front cover the usual “S.T.C.” label. In the lower left corner is written in pencil “2/6”. Entries 5340, 5344, 5448, and 5452 are at various angles on the inside front cover foliated as [1v] in ink. On the outside back cover, is written in ink “1826–1827” with “26” below the date. WATERMARK EMBLEM S 1805 SIZE AND CONDITION × 158 leaves foliated by the BM [f1v] to f159, 316 pages. One leaf was excised between f26v and f27 before foliation, and one or more leaves appear to have been torn out at the front, also before foliation. Entries are in ink except where indicated in the notes. Ff13v to 2, the notebook being reversed, are lettered A to W, Y.Coleridge’s numbering begins on f11 and continues to f128v with the odd numbers appearing in the upper right-hand corners of the recto pages and the verso pages remaining unmarked, except for ff19v, 20v, 42v, 62v, 68v, 72v, 76v, 86v, 101v, 112v, 117v, 123v, and 128v. The numbering system runs from 1 to 230. FIII (p 199) was not numbered. Coleridge began a second numbering from the back, from f157v to f156v, 1 to 3, again only odd numbers being used. A third numbering system going in the same direction begins on f152 and continues to f127v, the pages being numbered 1 to 50. F 22, 22v was tipped in, a calling card of “The Revd Richard Cattermole” on which entry 5390 was written. PERIOD OF USE The notebook was formerly a “Gillman Receipt Book” and prescriptions in a variety of unidentified hands appear on ff4−10v and ff 153–156. Coleridge eventually, mainly in 1826, uszd ff1–3v and 157–9, and wrote over the faint pencil jottings on ff4–10v. He apparently began to use the notebook on the pages following the first series of prescriptions, as he began his numbering on f11 and his earliest entries, datable September 1823, are on ff11–17v. The notebook was in use at intervals from then until October 1830, when the last entry was squeezed in on f152, the notebook being filled. The chief periods of use, however, seem to be May–June 1826 and May– July 1827. The notebook was used from back to front as well as from front to back, sometimes without any apparent consistency. Entries were often squeezed in wherever there seemed room for them, often skipping about most confusingly among those already on the pages,
the most notable example of which is 5374, which skipped over pages not yet filled but perhaps being reserved for some special purpose. The notebook appears to have been used as a kind of catch-all not only for personal miscellanies but also materials in connexion with entries in other notebooks, chiefly the Folio (in the 1826 entries) and Notebooks 33 and 34 in 1827, which record Coleridge’s studies in the NT in the summer of that year.
NOTEBOOK 28 BM Add MS 47, 526
BM Add MS 47, 526 COVER Red leather, with clasp now broken. There is a leather fold for a pencil holder attached to the top of the back cover. Written in black ink on the cover in a large hand (?Mrs Gillman’s) is “1819 & part/1824”. There is also a white homemade label on which is written 28/ii”. See 4645, 4646 and nn. WATERMARK None, nor chain lines. SIZE AND CONDITION 90 leaves, 182 pages used, including inside front and back covers, foliated [f1v] to f92. One leaf has been excised between f45v and f46, not included in the foliation, and ten pages were left blank (except for Coleridge’s numbering) between f75 and f76. Coleridge numbered the pages, including the ones left blank (ff75v–76–148– 157), from f2v to f76v, 2–160, the numbers appearing in the upper right- and left-hand corners of each page except the versos from f17v [31] to f76v [60]. The inside front cover f1v contains entry 4583; f2 is a title-page, with an “S.T.C.” label on it, entry 4582 in the upper right, and “16 July 1819/Highgate” written in ink below, followed by a paragraph of description; see 4584 and n: on the outside Continued from the red pocket book, marked Cover. That book like most of its Predecessors begins at the beginning, middle, and end—and κ’αταξια, I to prevent the jumble of Heterogene Subjects resulting from this have paged the last 28 sides the side next the Cover being p. 28: and devote these exclusively to Miscellanea. A second title-page appears on f78; see 4585 and n. “Miscellanea/vel cogitationum vel otiorum vel/negotiorum”; here a second numbering begins as I, and runs to f91v, as 28. Numbers are in upper right- and lefthand corners; f79 has been numbered “5”, the leaf of pages 3 and 4 having been torn out, with a stub remaining; having numbered two pages “7”, Coleridge inserted “07”s on what ought to have been pages 8 and 9 (ff80v and 81). Entries are in ink unless otherwise indicated. On f21 there are pencilled scribbles (by a child?) resembling a double B. PERIOD OF USE The notebook appears to have been in use at intervals from July 1819 until October 1820, in 1824–1825, then in 1827. The earliest entry dated is 16 July 1819 (4584) and
presumably the last (ff74v–75) is datable 1827 or later. The chief periods of use seem to have been April–October 1820 and after April 1824. The notebook was evidently meant to be third in a series, of which Notebook 27 and some notebook now lost were the other members (see 4645, 4646 and nn) and was put to use mainly for notes on scientific matters and the theories of the Naturphilosophen.
NOTEBOOK 30 BM Add MS 47, 527
BM Add MS 47, 527 COVER Brown leather and board; faint traces of the original red remain. On the front cover is written in black ink in a large hand (?Mrs Gillman’s) “1823. 1824/Rams-gate/ on the 30”. back “Ramsgate”. On the front is a white home-made label on which is written The inside of the front cover (f1v) has entry 5098, the inside back cover (f69), entries 4826 and 5005, front and back being determined by Coleridge’s main page-numbering. WATERMARK H M [no date] SIZE AND CONDITION ×4′′, 67 leaves, 136 pages, including the inside of the front and back covers and the inserted scraps, foliated// to f69. Rectos were numbered by Coleridge (f2, ff5–67, f69), with the odd numbers from 1 to 129, and, with the notebook turned (ff69, 67v–48v), with 1, 2 and the even numbers to 40. Numbers are centered at the top of the pages. Two leaves were excised between f51vand f52 leaving stubs not included in Coleridge’s numbering or the foliation. (For the missing leaves, now in PML, see below 5102 and n.) Entries are in ink except where otherwise indicated in the notes. In the BM rebinding three loose scraps of paper have been attached to three leaves inserted for the purpose. These scraps are foliated 3, 4, and 68. Their stubs appear between ff10v and 11, and ff59v and 60. F3 reads, in Mrs Gillman’s hand: “if this does not belong to this Book—it belongs to an old red book 1804.” This possibly refers to ff4–4v which is written on in ink: line of p. H. insert: For if the fact of the prior annunciation and acceptance of the Christian Faith, on which the authority of the Scriptures is grounded, be equal to the weight which it is to support, we must presume that the first Receivers of the Faith had found in it a fulfilment of those conditions, under which alone the authenticity of the writings could confer a binding authority on them: even if the authenticity itself could be sufficiently established, independent of this criterion. (Tho’ it be in some measure an anticipation and therefore a departure from our scheme of arrangement, we will yet, for the purpose of illustration alone, observe that the
Epistle of St Barnabas affords an instance in which both may be exemplified: if rejected as spurious (for which no other but internal reasons, and those not historical or chronological, can be assigned) on the grounds of this rejection;—but if acknowledged as genuine, then in the fact and justification of its non-admission into the Sacred Canon.) The Faith of the first Believers, antecedent to the existence of the sacred Writings may be supposed to fall from defects in the superstructure. Coleridge’s footnote sign indicating insertion on a mysterious “p[age] H” may be another pointer to a lost notebook; see N 28 Gen N. f68 gives a recipe, not in coleridge’s hand. PERIOD OF USE The notebook was in use over a relatively short period of time, from September–October 1823 to January 1824, when Coleridge was reading in church histories for his life of Leighton, although one entry (4826) may have been put in as early as September 1821. The notebook, like many others, was used from the back towards the front, with the book reversed, as well as from front to back. About half the entries are in one sequence, half in the other, although there is evidence that neither sequence is in straight chronological order.
NOTEBOOK 60 VCL Coleridge Collection MS 23
VCL Coleridge Collection MS 23 COVER No real cover, but the usual white label marked in ink N 60 on the first page. In an unknown hand, in pencil, the word “Copied” is written vertically towards the lefthand margin. The first entry begins on the first page or front cover; the last entry is on the last page (f28v) or back cover. See entries 4728 and 4944 and nn. Both are darkened with use. WATERMARK W.Turner 1805 SIZE AND CONDITION Approximately the same size as N 61 (see CN in Gen N) i.e.× 28 leaves, of which ff19vi, 25v– 28 are blank. This is a small home-made booklet that, like N 61, was stitched together with crotchet cotton on the longer side of sheets cut to size. Altogether it is in battered condition with some corners broken (f1, f10). An attempt appears to have been made to repair it, ff1, 2, 3 and 4 having been glued in together; they have broken away from the rest of the notebook. Entries are in ink. PERIOD OF USE October 1820, possibly for a brief time in 1822, and in the summer of 1823.
FOLIO NOTEBOOK HLH MS HM 17299
HLH MS HM 17299 COVER Brown marbled cardboard, in good condition. There are no labels or stickers. Entries F°.1 5308, F°.2 5361, F°.3, F°.4, F°.5 (the last three to come in CN V) are on inside front cover [f1v]. WATERMARK EMBLEM Chain Lines J.Coles 1823 SIZE AND CONDITION × 186 leaves, not foliated by the Huntington Library. Foliation here is therefore adventitiously imposed according to the system used for the other notebooks and is marked with square brackets, including inside front and back covers which contain sheet pasted entries, and two leaves [ff185–186v] that were excised. There is a in between [f49v and f50] containing a copy of part of entry 5426, smudged by the cancellations in 5424, done in Mrs Gillman’s hand. Pages were numbered by Coleridge 1 to 201 from [f3] to [f103], with numbers being omitted, irregularly on many versos to f80v, and on all versos from there to ƒ103v. The bottom two inches of [ff54–54v] are torn off and [f66v] is numbered twice as 128 and 131. Numbers are usually in the upper centre of the page; 131 [f68] is in the upper right-hand corner. The [f67v] 130 is left blank, as are [ff92–100v] and [ff101v–181]. Entries begin again on [f181v] and continue to [f187]. It is not known whether [ff185–186v] were excised before or after entries on them were entered in the notebook. Entries are in ink unless otherwise indicated. On [f101] 197 is a title, “Fly-Catcher No XX”. PERIOD OF USE The folio notebook appears to have been used from I November 1825 until March 1832 in normal order with a few exceptions from front to back without reversals or turning. For the most part it was used in conjunction with Notebooks 26, 33, and 34 for Coleridge’s theological and philosophical conjectures, although it contains some highly personal entries and a long autobiographical one. See 5257 for what may have been intended as a title for the whole notebook.
NOTES ON THE NOTEBOOKS 1819–1826 Entries 4505–5471
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4505 27.25 The entry was hastily scribbled in pencil. Christies Vases: A Disquisition upon Etruscan Vases; displaying their probable connection with the shows upon Eleusis, and the Chinese Feast of Lanterns with explanations of a few of the principal allegories depicted upon them was published anonymously [by James Christie] in 1806; a second edition with considerable differences entitled Disquisitions upon the Painted Greek Vases and their probable connection with the Shows of the Eleusinian and Other Mysteries appeared over his name in 1825. Coleridge might perhaps have known before 1825 that the work was by Christie, a prominent member of the Dilettanti. If this entry belongs in 1819 as would be natural from its position in the notebook, Mr Westmacott could be Sir Richard W. (1775–1856), knighted in 1837, or his son Richard (1799–1872), also R.A. (1818). The father made many statues in Westminster, St. Paul’s, and other public places, and became R.A. in 1811; a more important link with Coleridge, he was a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana. Or is Mr Westmacott Charles [Molloy] Westmacott, brother of Sir Richard, editor of various periodicals, e.g., Magazine of the Fine Arts and sometime cataloguer of the Royal Academy Exhibitions? His Descriptive and Critical Catalogue of the Exhibition of the Royal Academy (1823) is certainly critical, even caustic towards R.A.’s. Perhaps Coleridge wished to consult him about vases. Although Christie’s auction sales of vases are too numerous for positive identification, this Mr Westmacott may well have had knowledge about some painted Greek vases. In the absence of a date, identification cannot be firm, but on 18 June 1819 there was a sale at Christie’s of painted “Greek Vases”, described in the catalogues as “of extreme rarity and great beauty, and many enriched with early GREEK INSCRIPTIONS”. There were also some “Marbles”, “a Bas Relief, and a few other fine Works of the SCHOOL OF CANOVA”, in which school Sir Richard Westmacott had studied. 4506 27.26 On electric treatment, and one of the leading “electricians” of the time, Eley Stott, see CN III 4387, and below, 4624 and nn. Was the patient here James Gillman? Or J.H.Green? In the reading He, the H is not entirely acceptable as Coleridge’s capital letter; if it is a J it carries over a stroke to the next letter, also unclear, but possibly ending in a full stop; the pen was running dry. 4507 27.27 The entry is based largely on William Mitford The History of Greece (edition unknown); six editions appeared in Coleridge’s lifetime, between 1784 and 1829. On Mitford cf Lect 8 P Lects (CC) f353. Olen, Hymnist: Cf Mitford (1814) I 78: It appears from a strong concurrence of circumstances recorded by antient writers, that the early inhabitants of Asia Minor, Thrace, and Greece, were the same people …and the whole Thracian people were, by some antient writers, included within the Ionian name…. Herodotus asserts that the antient hymns sung at the festival of Apollo at Delos, were composed by Olen, a Lycian; and Pausanias says that the hymns of Olen, the Lycian, were the oldest known to the Greeks, and that Olen, the Hyperborean, who seems to have been the same person, was the inventor of the Grecian
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hexameter verse. It seems a necessary inference that the language both of Thrace and of Lycia was Greek…and the Thracian Thamyris, or Thamyras, Orpheus, Musaeus and Eumolpus, with the Lycian Olen, were the acknowleged fathers of Grecian poetry, the acknowledged reformers of Grecian manners;… Olympus, the father of Grecian music, whose compositions, which Plato calls divine, retained the highest reputation even in Plutarch’s time, was a Phrygian. In the Grecian mythology we find continual references to Asiatic and Thracian stories; and even in the heroïc ages, which followed the mystic, the Greeks and Asiatics appear to have communicated as kindred people…. Herodotus remarks that the Lycian laws and manners, even in his time, very nearly resembled the Grecian; and the Lycians and Pamphylians were so evidently of the same race with the Greeks, that he supposed them the descendants of emigrants from Crete, from Athens, and other parts of Greece. Trojans spoke the same language: Mitford goes on to discuss the Trojan War but does not say the Trojans spoke the same language. Coleridge no doubt inferred it from the absence of language difficulties between Greeks and Trojans in Homer, and from the Trojans, like Olympus, being Phrygians. all Ioaones—Descendants of Javan: See CN III 4379, 4384 and nn, for Coleridge’s consistently eccentric spelling of loaones (for Ia[w]ones contracted to Iones, “Ionians”); see also below 4839 and n. In Gen 10:2–5 the sons of Javan (Septuagint , son of Japhet, divided “the isles of the Gentiles”. The name, Javan, is translated “Hellas” several times in the Septuagint. Josephus Antiquities of the Jews 1 6 has it that “from Javan Ionia and all the Greeks are derived” (tr Whiston). Bochart Geographia Sacra (1681) I 174–5, which Coleridge read also (see 4839 f122 and n) summarizes the evidence and gives the Greek spelling of Javan, which accounts for Coleridge’s. Coleridge was interested in the long traditional blending of Greek and biblical “history”. So too the Pelasgi: Coleridge, as also in 4839 f123, is disagreeing with Mitford and others (Mitford Chap I § 2, Chap III § I) who implied that the Pelasgi were barbarians, i.e. non-Greeks, migratory and primitive, and that the Greeks sprang from a mixture of them and other primitive hordes with more civilised colonies from Phoenicia and Egypt. See Mitford (1814) I 31. Again, Mitford (I 198) refers to Herodotus VII 95 for the view that at one time the name included all peoples of Grecian race. Coleridge’s an earlier migration, barbarized is his solution of the difficulty. Hesiod…makes no mention of manuring the ground: Cf Mitford Chap II § iii, “It is remarked by Cicero that Hesiod, in his poem on husbandry, makes no mention of manure: but Homer expressly speaks of dunging land….” I 153. Mitford, in a shoulder note, gives the reference to the Odyssey (17.299) that Coleridge cites. f34 The juniority of the Odyssey: To the Iliad, though not to Hesiod, has always been generally accepted. Mitford did not question the implications for dating, as Coleridge did, but continued on the same page to discuss “the culture of the vine”, and cited also the Odyssey (3.90) on Nestor’s having “produced some [wine], at a sacrifice, eleven years old”. the Shield of Achilles: Coleridge was thinking of the description of the grape harvesting in the Iliad 18.561–72 (not mentioned by Mitford), one of the scenes on the
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shield made by Hephaestus for Achilles. HNC later in his Introductions to the Study of the Greek Classic Poets (1830), which owed a good deal to Coleridge’s conversation (see CN III 3656n), nevertheless maintained that the Shield of Achilles passage was not an addition but an integral “part and act of the Story itself” (87). See also his second edition (1834) 214–22. In a note to the Table Talk (12 May 1830) he said Coleridge was “a confirmed Wolfian” (in believing that Homer was the name not for one man but for numerous rhapsodists), but without having read Wolf’s Prolegomena. See also ibid 9 Jul 1832. As early as 1808 Coleridge was rejecting the “personality” of Homer as is clear from annotations on his copy of Chapman’s Homer (CM II under Homer); cf CN III 3656, also references under Homer in this volume. 4508 27.28 Coleridge attempted variously to explain the change in his opinions from Unitarianism and the more fleeting “Necessitarianism”; see 5113, also CN III 3743. On the subject of the young being “less shocked by the doctrine of Necessity” see Lects 1795 (CC) 49n, The Friend (CC) I 338n. Causa causarum: “Cause of causes”, a recurrent phrase; cf e.g. 4728. 4509 27.29 In pencil, lower left, at right angles to 4508 and later than it. The conjunction of names here may suggest the spring of 1819 and thoughts turning at the close of the philosophical and literary lectures towards publishers. Good Friday in 1819 was April 9, in 1820 Mar 31, in 1822 April 5, in 1823 April 10. 5th–12: See the dates at weekly intervals in 4532, possibly associated with opium withdrawal. the Good Friday Boon if possible: Some benefit connected with Good Friday, such as fasting, from the drug? In 1819 Good Friday was April 9, i.e. between the 5th and the 12th? Or could Boon have been someone to be called upon, or to call, on Good Friday if possible? James Shergold Boone (1799–1859) caused a sensation in 1818–19 with his satirical poem on Oxford life, The Oxford Spy. He went down with a pass degree, throwing away brilliant abilities to lecture in London on the relation of the arts and sciences. Boone proposed and himself largely wrote a monthly periodical called The Council of Ten, of which the first of twelve issues appeared in June 1822. Did Coleridge know of him through Hartley, in 1819 in Oriel College? Was Boone seeking out Coleridge as he planned a periodical in the mode of The Friend? Or was Coleridge interested in him? The Council of Ten discussed some of Coleridge’s bêtes noires like contemporary reviewing and journalism, attacking QR and Blackwood’s among other periodicals. Boone’s bent is shown by his becoming, a few years later, editor of the British Critic and Theological Review. There was also the Reverend Thomas Charles Boone, B.A., St. Peter’s College, Cambridge, who in 1826 published The Book of Churches and Sects, which systematically described many known and many lesser known denominations. But if Coleridge had any acquaintances with these men there is now no evidence. 1. Boosey: Thomas Boosey, publisher and bookseller with whom Coleridge had frequent dealings; see CN III 3262n. In May 1820 Coleridge turned down a proposal from him that he prepare excerpts from Faust to accompany a volume of illustrations to Goethe’s Faust: CL V 42–4 and nn. 2. Blackwood: 19 March 1819 Coleridge reported having an interview with William Blackwood. CL IV 928. They corresponded from April 1819 to May 1832, chiefly about
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contributions to Blackwood’s Magazine. 12 April 1819 Coleridge wrote to him a wellknown letter on how his periodical ideally should be run (CL IV 931–3), and another letter 30 June 1819 (ibid 943–5). Another in a vein similar to the former was written 19 Sept 1821 (CL V 167–71), after which no letter to Blackwood until 1830 has been published. 3 Colburn: Henry Colburn? He was until July 1817 editor of the Literary Gazette, and c Feb 1819 requested Coleridge’s permission to engrave Leslie’s portrait of him for his New Monthly Magazine; it appeared there 1 April 1819. Coleridge’s letters to him (Dec 1818–July 1827) suggest that he thought of Colburn as a potential publisher; see CL V 281. 4 Holland: Possibly the “Mr Holland”, not identified, whose invitation to write for the New Monthly Magazine Coleridge acknowledged 14 Feb 1818: CL IV 838. Or is it Lord Holland? Or his son? If the date is 1819, Coleridge perhaps considered writing to Lord Holland for support against threatened repression of freedom of assembly and a free press. Holland spoke forcefully and urbanely in the debate on the Seditious Libels Bill in Dec 1819. Coleridge had been in correspondence with the Hollands as early as Sept 1806 (CL II 1182), at which time an invitation to Holland House miscarried (CL VI 1017). In July 1810 it seems likely they met in Keswick, at which time Holland’s son, Henry Edward Fox, was with his parents. On 28 Jan 1819 the son attended one of Coleridge’s Shakespeare lectures (CN III 3972n). Later Coleridge might have wished to applaud Holland’s opposition to the Alien Bill of July 1820; see 4700 and n. Was this a list of letters to be written and matters to be attended to? 5: The last line gives rise only to speculation, like so much connected with Mrs Coleridge; she paid a long-discussed visit to Devonshire and Ottery St Mary in 1823; see 4952 and n. 4510 27.30 Rabbi Barchana for his hat: In the Babylonian Talmud, in the treatise of Baba Bathra 74a, this story of Rabba Bar Barchana tells of how, being in the desert with an Arab guide, he put his basket [for bread] in a window of heaven, while he prayed. On ending his prayers, he found it no longer there, because the heavenly wheel, revolving, had carried it away; the Arab assured him he would find it “tomorrow”. The story is told and ascribed to “Rabba, the grandson of Chana”, as his invention, by Coleridge’s friend Hyman Hurwitz in the Essay prefatory to his Hebrew Tales (1826) 27– 9. Hurwitz adds to the story itself the statement: It is generally supposed, that the grandson of Chana accounted for the phenomenon by supposing, according to the Ptolemaic system, that the heavens turned round the earth. [Coleridge’s annus Magnus.] But it is not improbable that, by the expression, “Come and I will shew thee where heaven and earth meet,” he intimated, that the phenomenon may be explained in two ways; either in the manner just stated, or on the Pythagorean system of the earth’s turning on its own axis: for the disappearance and re-appearance of the fictitious basket would take place on either supposition. Fortunatus Cap: I.e. the magic Cap of European folk literature going back to Hans Sachs (CN I 453 and n) and earlier, which transported the wearer anywhere at will.
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The annus Magnus: the “Great Year” of Jewish, Greek, and mediaeval philosophy and folklore, or the 36,000-year period for the heavenly bodies to complete their rotations in every possible combination of positions; thus, as a result of their influence on human affairs, history supposedly repeats itself every 36,000 years. Coleridge, clearly more interested in the tale than in the astronomical principles involved (the peeping into every window as it passes is his addition as well as the annus Magnus and Fortunatus Cap). He had tried to use his influence to get the Hebrew Tales published. On his translation from German of three tales in the volume, see The Friend (CC) I 370n. Coleridge used the magic Fortunatus Cap also at the end of C&S (CC) 184. 4511 29.14 The date inserted later is in blacker ink than the entry. The quotation marks and the reference at the end are a blind. Henry Somerville is the title of A Tale by the author of Hartlebourn Castle (2 vols 1797), but it is not in a series of letters, and the passage Coleridge pretends to quote is not in it. It portrays in sentimental mawkish vein, strained human relations, which may distantly have occasioned the use of the title here to cover up some personal misery probably connected with the Gillmans’ attempts to control Coleridge’s addiction. Cf the identification with fictional sensibility in CN II 2117, 2125, and nn, CN III 3561, 4272 and nn, and below see also 5005 and n. 4512 29.15 If additional proof respecting the facts of…Animal Magnetism were necessary: Coleridge’s serious interest in animal magnetism may have begun with a reading of C.A.F.Kluge Versuch einer Darstellung des animalischen Magnetismus, als Heilmittel (Berlin 1815), his copy of which is in BM; two annotations on it are in Inq Sp § 31, § 32. A fragment of an essay on the subject (BM Add MS 36,532 ff7–12) dated 8 July 1817 is in Inq Sp § 30. His interest was continuous from 1817 and at least into 1822—see 4908 and n—generally positive or at least open-minded; see also The Friend (CC) I 59 and n I, and a letter of 1 Dec 1818 to Thomas Curtis recommending the subject for an article in the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana CL IV 886–7. The contrast between the Reports of the German Magnetisers and those of the French is seen in Archiv für den thierischen Magnetismus ed. C.A. Eschenmayer, D.G.Kieser, and Fr.Nasse (12 vols Altenburg and Leipzig 1817–24). quovis modo: “in some way.” In Archiv I Pt iii 120–49 Kieser reviewed Annales du magnétisme animal (Paris 1814– 16), giving the 1 July 1814 date which appears on the title page. “most believing mind”: Cf “still believing mind” in The Pang More Sharp than All: PW I 457; and “most believing heart” in To Mary Pridham: PW I 468. f4 third Heft…Archiv…p. 127: Cf the same review in Archiv I iii esp 125–8: Tr: Finally, let us make an early observation, giving chapter and verse later, concerning the difference in the phenomenon of animal magnetism in France and in Germany. Here in Germany it is well known how difficult even practised magnetisers find it to make their sick patients clairvoyant. And out of a hundred people who have been treated magnetically they succeed in producing the higher degrees of somnambulism perhaps in only a few. If we may credit all the cases mentioned in these Annals, the opposite seems to be the case in France. Clairvoyance occurs so easily there that persons who are magnetising for the first time produce it in their patients at the very first session…. What
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is the cause of this greater ease in producing clairvoyants? Does it lie in the different method of treatment, which in general is simpler there, consisting more in the effort and fixation of the will than in artificial manipulations, and in the greater precision and certainty of treatment altogether—i.e. in the subjective strength of the magnetisers? We are not inclined to accept this, for if it were so, then there must also be individual magnetisers here in Germany, most of whose patients would become clairvoyants, and because in France even novices in magnetising produce such rapid effects. Or is it to be found generally in a greater animation, in a greater irritability of the nerves, and in a natural disposition towards somnambulism—i.e. in the objective weakness of the magnetised patients who yield the more readily to the organic influences of another person? An interesting parallel can be drawn in this connexion between the general phenomenon of animal magnetism and the national disposition of the French as a whole; for it is characteristic of animal magnetism as one of the highest manifestations of human life, that it should reflect the true image of everything relating to the inner life of a person and a people. This much at least emerges from all the facts recorded in these Annals: that in France the animal-magnetic method of treatment depends more on the will than it does in Ger-many—which would then of course allow us to conclude a greater subjective strength on the part of the magnetisers. the French Report under Dr Franklin: Coleridge referred 8 Feb 1819 Lect 7 P Lects (CC) f326 to a Report of Dr Franklin and Other Commissioners (1784), which was ordered by the King of France. The investigation, while admitting the fact of cures, denied the magnetists’ theory of a magnetic fluid diffused through the human body as an agency deriving from celestial influences, and susceptible to their manipulations. Coleridge agreed; see Inq Sp § 32. Mesmer himself did not claim proof. The Report described also convulsive reactions, effected through touch, pressure of hands, iron rods, and music, and argued that the results were partly the effect of physical contact, but largely of imagination. properties of the Skin…Volition: In CN I 1827, referring back to an 1801 entry, I 1039; see also I 1826. reactions of the whole & of all the parts: See CN II 2402 for this Coleridgian principle applied to the skin and nerves. contagium quasi ingeneratio: “a contagion that is, so to speak, an ingeneration”. Opium…on men of feminine constitution: For Coleridge on his own lack of “manliness” (especially in comparison with WW) see CN II 3148 f45v, and Inq Sp § 221. uterifaction: Not in OED; i.e. the whole system’s becoming the womb. despoinism: Not in OED, from δέσποινα, “mistress”, i.e. female domination. Whether Mesmer were the Discoverer of a new Power: The defensive remarks here were called forth by the review in Archiv 1 iii 128–33, of a work antagonistic to Mesmer, on the history of mesmerism since Mesmer’s first appearance in Paris. a new Power…Electricity: If animal magnetism is a new Power it must be of a hitherto unknown kind, and at a different level in the hierarchy of powers. Is animal magnetism then neither animal nor magnetism, but some higher power seen at work in psychological
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and medical effects and still not understood, something like a cutaneous Galυanism? See below 4639 and n. as Galυanism to common Electricity: Several kinds of electricity were recognized in the early 19th century, and it was left to Faraday to demonstrate that “common” and galvanic electricity are identical. “Common” electricity was produced by friction; galvanic electricity by the contact of two dissimilar metals through the intermedium of an electrolyte, as in the Voltaic pile; animal electricity was produced e.g. by the electric eel. There was some discussion as to whether nervous action was essentially electrical in its transmission. Of the other work of the editors of this Archiv, Coleridge knew best Eschenmayer’s: see CN III 4435n and in this volume 4633 and n. For more use of the Archiv see 4624, 4809 and nn. 4513 29.16 In appearance like 4512, and probably datable close to it, 16 April 1819. Two-thirds of a page after this entry was left blank. Coleridge refers to this entry as elucidating 4644 ff26v–27v; see 4644. The ancient Mathematicians: See 5294 f20v 5406 and nn. a line…engendered by a point producing itself: I.e. Coleridge’s dy.00000namic hypotheses in mathematical terms; see, in addition to the entries referred to above, 4718, 4974; also 4538 where Schelling is in the background, as possibly here, and in Chap XII BL (CC) I 249–50. But see also Coleridge’s interest in fluxions in 4797 and n. The words engendered and producing are key terms. For the Naturphilosoph, Nature is alive, developing, and unified in its quantitative accretions and qualitative changes from within. It produces, and is product, active and passive. See Schelling Einleitung 5, 22, 30. All evolution in Nature begins from a point, which is finite, unlike productivity, which is potentially infinite. A line produced from a point, says Schelling (32 foll) is “unendlich”. Schelling takes this metaphor for production even further in his “All-gemeine Deduction des dynamischen Processes” in Zeitschrift für spekulativ Physik I (Jena & Leipzig 1800) i 100–36, and ii 1–87; Coleridge’s copy, heavily annotated, is in the BM. In these essays Schelling proposes magnetism, electricity, and chemical process as the three general categories of physics (i 102). He postulates attractive and expansive forces which, because of their opposition (+——0——−) constitute the dimension of length. A line in nature requires three points (i 109), like a magnetic axis. It follows (i 112) that length in nature “can exist only under the form of magnetism”. The first act of differentiation, metaphorically represented by a point producing itself into a line, is thus the production of magnetism. The next productive step is the qualitative transition to electricity from magnetism, represented metaphorically by a dimensional transition from length to breadth or surface, as electric bodies (i 124–5) are electric over their whole surface. An analogous dimensional change takes place from surface to depth, from electricity to chemical process, which acts in depth. Coleridge used Schelling’s argument in almost literal translation in TL 87 foll, to describe the development of life through successive organisms arranged according to powers correlative with length, breadth, depth; magnetism, electricity, and chemical process (galvanism); reproduction, irritability, and sensibility. These correlations are also Steffens’s, as noted below in this n.
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For Coleridge the physical powers of magnetism, electricity, and galvanism are symbols of ideal powers, so that the more abstract metaphors of geometrical terms are perhaps more congenial because they make clear the difference between phenomenal and noumenal. theorem (i.e. Actus…contemplans): I.e. the theorem is “the Act of one contemplating thus and not otherwise, contemplating itself as thing contemplated”. Coleridge calls attention to the derivation of theorem from θεώρηµα, “contemplation”; cf below 4895 and n, 5404 f86; LS: SM (CC) 49nn and The Friend (CC) I 459 and nn. theses (θεσεις): Again a derivation being noted; literally “puttings”, or “settings”, or “positions”. from right to leaf: A curious slip. to manifest itself is to produce itself: For a more elaborate treatment of themes and terms in this and the next paragraph, see CN III 4418, 4427, and 4436 and nn; they recur frequently in subsequent entries in this volume, e.g. 4550, 5090, and 5092; this entry may also reflect some general reaction to H.Steffens’s system of polarities, perhaps in part to his Grundzüge; Coleridge in his marginalia on that work, and on Schelling’s Einleitung, came to reject the argument he is trying to summarize here. 4514 29.17 The entry appears to be datable with 4511, c 16 April 1819. The end of it was compressed in being written around CN III 4203. Four leaves were torn out after this 4514, as indicated by Coleridge’s own numbering (see CN III N 29 Gen N) but as no stubs were left, the foliating provides no evidence of this but is continuous. Coleridge here abbreviated an article in The London Medical Repository (August 1816) VI 89–97 “On the Poisonous Effects of the Bark of Angustura Pseudo-ferruginea, or spurious Angustura Bark”, by the toxicologist A.G.F.Emmert of Tübingen. Emmert distinguished between the genuine angustura from the West Indies [?quinine] and the spurious from the East Indies [?strychnine] or at least referred to the genus Strychnos, the plant from which the latter comes. He described experiments on animals with “Dr Meyer” finding its action violently poisonous with “a frequent convulsive pulse; an anxious and frightened look etc”. “The imperfect conversion of the venous into arterial blood” is Emmert’s phrase. On p.92–3 is recorded the likeness to Hydrophobia, the increased Sensitiveness in sight and hearing, and the case of a five-year-old boy who remained conscious and rational till the moment of death. Emmert said that “every impression, however light—the touch of a fly, for instance, on any sensible part of the body, excites the sensation of an electric shock” (92) and (94) that the “effects…are felt in the blood vessels, and all parts of the body that are either furnished with them, or cover them as a thin cuticle”. The parallel with saliva of rabies is Coleridge’s, no doubt induced by the next article, “Observations on Hydrophobia” by R. Bellingham, and by James Gillman’s interest in that subject. Gillman had published a paper on it in 1812 (referred to as an “ingenious Dissertation” in the same periodical, No 2 for 1814 p 386); see also 4719 and n below. Few and doubtful organic changes…after Death! “Putridity is at least not strikingly promoted or retarded by this poison. It leaves no organic changes in any part of the body.” Emmert 93. Berzelius, Davy, or Woolaston: Coleridge thinks of the recently elected Secretary of the Stockholm Academy of Science (the leading Swedish chemist), and the two eminent
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English chemist-inventors and experimenters of this date—William Hyde Wollaston (1766–1828) and Humphry Davy. Rubigo υirosa: Angustura virosa, the poisonous angustura, is so mentioned (Emmert 89) but no Rubigo. Is the Rubigo the bitter poisonous constituent of the spurious angustura? Fluate of iron: Fluorine, a fairly recent discovery, analagous to the other halogens (chlorine, iodine, fluorine, etc) partakes of the easterly power of oxygen (see 4555 f49) which corresponds to contraction (cf 4719n). On the basis of this analogy, corresponding to the physiological action of the spurious angustura, Coleridge is suggesting the presence of the salt, Fluate of Iron now called a fluoride. Emmert 93 referred only to salts of iron. Excess of Astringent+Contractive: I.e. Attraction modified by Contraction creates an excess of astringency. Saliva rabipea: Rabies-causing saliva. See 4719 and n. Coleridge’s last paragraph may have been occasioned by an article in the same number of the London Medical Repository (VI 118–32) on sM.J.B.Orfila Traité des Poisons Vol 2, in which rabies as being either “spontaneous” or “communicated”, is discussed, as well as cholera, “malignant fever”, “gaseous poisons”, and “poisoning generally”. This article was followed by “Observations on the Harveian Doctrine of the Circu-lation of the Blood” (pp 132–43 by George Kerr), in which subject Coleridge showed interest in CN III 4448. He could hardly fail to go on to read the next piece on “the Incubus, or Nightmare, disturbed Sleep, Terrific Dreams, and Nocturnal Visions”. 2 senses of the term, Probability: See 4809 and 5248 and nn. The Lottery was an almost obsessive analogy; see CN II 2060, 2330, 2579, 2753; CN III 3343. See also LS (CC) 123n. f6v Solifidianists: Instead of the common use to mean believers in salvation by faith alone, Coleridge often applies the word to one who believes in one source or cause only (e.g. as here of disease). “unique phenomenon”. απαξ λεγοµενον: “unique statement/a nonce word” here, “an unique occurrence”. archists: Miarchist is not in OED; Coleridge is playing with two Greek mon prefixes meaning “one”. µονη η µια της λυσσας αρχη: “a sole or one cause of frenzy”. 4515 29.21 This entry and 4516 appear to have been inserted on pages that were left blank, apparently out of a hope to continue the verses on Joan of Arc; see 4516 and CN III 4202 and nn. Although an 1815 date for these entries may be suggested by the references to Leibnitz here and in Chap VIII and Chap XIII of BL, more reasonable appears to be a date close to 4511–4512, which are similar in hand. This entry, followed by 4516, runs on to the top of f8v on which the “Advertisement” of the Greek Grammar (CN III 4210) had already been written in June 1814 filling in part of the blank, but at that time Coleridge left the top half of f8v empty, either for more Joan of Arc verses or for a title for the grammar; hence the exception in these MSS of an entry beginning low down on a blank page; see CN II 4210n. Leibnitz…fundamental Power: Coleridge saw in Leibnitz’s “force primitive” (Système Nouvelle), in his monads, and in the ambiguity of his “representation” (Monadologie) a useful dynamic hypothesis to reconcile the many and the one, the parts and the whole,
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science and theology; but the Leibnitzian monad represents as well as the active the passive states, is a vis representiva (Vorstellungskraft), “a power of representation”, which deprives the originating or “Fundamental Power” (Grundkraft) of the fully dynamic role required by Coleridge’s monotheistic position. Although the natural world is for Leibnitz contingent on the will of God, i.e. another harmony might have been preestablished by him, and yet, although all monads are distinet entities, individuals, they are pre-estab-lished, conditioned; the will of the individual, therefore, can be said hypothetically, to be necessitated. Although man has access to the necessary and eternal truths and thus knows the perfection of God, he too is subject to, or acted upon by, the merely contingent; to what degree this is the case is the measure of his imperfection. a probable Truth turned topsy-turvy: On Quantity, not as the ground of Quality but dependent on it, see 5103, 5155, 5189 and nn. See also letters of 1817 in CL IV 760, 790; also notes in CM I on Thomas Browne Pseudodoxia & c § 492, and in CM II on Hegel Logik § 11. The causal priority of Quality is argued also in Opus Max (MS) 1 f13. TL 51n also glosses this entry. The magnet acts in length…the Electric Fluid in surface, the Galυanic in Depth or Body: See 4719, 4929 and nn; also TT 15 June 1827; and 4739 for an extension from physics to theology. 4516 29.22 See 4515 and n for the dating of this entry. Turn over to p. 28 (i.e, f12v) was an instruction to himself, it being necessary to avoid the Greek grammar already on the intervening pages; i.e. continued from p. 20 means from f8v; see CN III 4210 and n. Sight as the most perfect Sense: A view as old as Aristotle at least, on which Coleridge offered some qualifying caution; cf 4518 f96 and n. He could be recalling the views of his friend Thomas Wedgwood in “An Enquiry into the Origin of our Notion of Distance”; QJSLA No V (1817) III 2–12. It was not published in his lifetime but doubtless was discussed with Coleridge (CN I 1297 and n). Wedgwood referred to “a notion of distance from the eye, or what Berkeley calls outness”, and argued against the need for calling in the sense of touch to explain it. “A visual perception is a sign which excites the standard visual idea, and the whole of that process is performed by the sense of sight alone, for which Berkeley called in the sense of touch.” In other words, sight recognizes conceptions of relations. In the second paragraph here it is evident that what Coleridge in 4813 below called the high dignity of Vision in Man is not in question, but is not to be reduced to mere modes of Sensation, as the empiricists do; it is more than sensuous, more dynamic. Improvers of Locke’s psychology…: Berkeley is not among the names here, but see 4540, 5276 and nn where he is accused of reducing Perception to mere modes of Sensation. Omne Scibile: “Everything Knowable”. videre, et υideri: “to see and to be seen”/“seem”. Agere et pati: “to Act and to be acted upon”/“suffer”; see also 5189, 5411. per catachresin: “by a perversion of the meaning”; cf 5326 and n. 4517 27.70 For an explanation of the foliation in this entry see 4580n. Christallization…: The first step in the ascent of life after the metals. TL 47. Cohesion: See 4554, 4555, and CN III 4223, 4333, 4433 and nn. X—Y…: See 4533 f100; i.e. the physical sciences deal with objects separated from one another and the zoological sciences deal with objects added to one another.
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f98 Personity: Not in OED. The word is clearly written and to be distinguished from Personeity, as used in 5244, 5256, etc. X—y…: Coleridge used capital letters here as a notation for predominance; see 4555. f97 the Science of Theology…Theosophy. In an early annotation on his copy of Plotinus Opera philosophica omnia (Basel 1580), inscribed “14 Dec. 1805 Naples”, Coleridge wrote: “It is one of Kant’s greatest errors that he speaks so slightingly of Psychology and the weakest parts of his System are attributable to his want of the habits and facts of Psychology which with all its imperfections and uncertainty is next to necessary in order to prevent Metaphysics from passing into Theosophy and Theurgy— i.e. Dreaming and Conjuring.” Cf below 5094 f104v, 5406 f93v. 4518 27.71 The entry, the substance of which is closely related to TL, is a dialogue with John Abernethy. Coleridge was reading closely, questioning, and relating to his earlier reading, Physiological Lectures exhibiting a general view of Mr. Hunters Physiology, and of his Researches in Comparative Anatomy (1817), and An Enquiry into the Probability and Rationality of Mr. Hunter’s Theory of Life…. (1814). Abernethy gave the Hunterian Oration for 1819 on 15 Feb which Coleridge attended at four in the afternoon and then in the evening at eight delivered Lect 8 of his philosophical lectures. Atoms: Cf Lect 3 P Lects (CC) ff90–95 where the subject is treated much as here on ff96υ−96. Suffiction: See CN III 3587 f1v and n; it is noted that Newton may be relevant there also in this context. Surinam Toad: Abernethy referred to it, long a metaphor with Coleridge; see CN I 124n, CL III 94–5, and the 1809 Friend: The Friend (CC) II 212. Abernethy’s discussion in Physiological Lectures 317–18 was anatomical and referred to Hunter’s earlier work, which may originally have drawn Coleridge’s attention to the Surinam Toad. Parmenides: It is now accepted, as it was by C in Lect 3 P Lects (CC) ff70–72, 90, that it was Parmenides (the real founder of the Eleatic school) who, with his eternal, continuous, unchanging, unmoving, spherical One, set the problem that the atomic philosophers tried to solve. But ancient sources clash, and Tennemann is inconsistent, at I 171–2 fn and at I 414–5, in his chronological table (giving 460 B.C. for Parmenides and 500 B.C. for Leucippus). For his chronological table in P Lects (CC) Coleridge followed Tennemann’s. His arguments that follow do not bear much resemblance to the arguments attributed to Parmenides by Tennemann (I 170–1). Coleridge’s marginalia on Tennemann I 174–8 censure Tennemann’s “pseudo-Kantian” interpretations of Parmenides and failure to give a complete text of the fragments. See also 4521 and n. f96 physically indivisible: An early question of Coleridge’s related to his reading of Newton (CN I 93n). See Newton’s Opticks Query 31. a Theory which commences with a miracle: Coleridge frequently made this point: Lect 3 P Lects (CC) f92, TL 45. Cohesion: See 4517 and n. a new set of Atoms: This had actually been proposed by G.L.LeSage in Essai de Chymie méchanique (1758). Subtle Fluid: Cf TL 66, and Lect 12 P Lects (CC) f568 and n 60. This was an old objection; there is a long footnote to the term in line 34 of Coleridge’s contribution to Southey’s Joan of Arc Bk II (1796). The lines 34–7 read:
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Their subtle fluids, impacts, essences, Self-working Tools, uncaus’d Effects, and all Those blind Omniscients, those Almighty Slaves, Untenanting Creation of its God. The footnote is not included in PW I 135: Line 34 Sir Isaac Newton at the end of the last edition of his Optics, supposes that a very subtile and elastic fluid, which he calls aether, is diffused thro’ the pores of gross bodies, as well as thro’ the open spaces that are void of gross matter; he supposes it to pierce all bodies, and to touch their least particles, acting on them with a force proportional to their number or to the matter of the body on which it acts. He supposes likewise, that it is rarer in the pores of bodies than in open spaces, and even rarer in small pores and dense bodies, than in large pores and rare bodies; and also that its density increases in receding from gross matter; so for instance as to be greater at the of an inch from the surface of any body, than at its surface; and so on. To the action of this aether he ascribes the attractions of gravitation and cohaesion, the attraction and repulsion of electrical bodies, the mutual influences of bodies and light upon each other, the effects and communication of heat, and the performance of animal sensation and motion. David Hartley from whom this account of aether is chiefly borrowed, makes it the instrument of propagating those vibrations or configurative motions which are ideas. It appears to me, no hypothesis ever involved so many contradictions; for how can the same fluid be both dense and rare in the same body at one time? yet in the Earth as gravitating to the Moon, it must be very rare; and in the Earth as gravitating to the Sun, it must be very dense. For, as Andrew Baxter well observes, it doth not appear sufficient to account how this fluid may act with a force proportional to the body to which another is impelled, to assert that it is rarer in great bodies than in small ones: it must be farther asserted that this fluid is rarer or denser in the same body, whether small or great, according as the body to which that is impelled is itself small or great. But whatever may be the solidity of this objection, the following seems unanswerable: If every particle thro’ the whole solidity of a heavy body receive its impulse from the particles of this fluid, it should seem that the fluid itself must be as dense as the very densest heavy body, gold for instance; there being as many impinging particles in the one, as there are gravitating particles in the other which receive their gravitation by being impinged upon: so that, throwing gold or any heavy body upward, against the impulse of this fluid, would be like throwing gold thro’ gold; and as this aether must be equally diffused over the whole sphere of its activity, it must be as dense when it impels cork as when it impels gold: so that to throw a piece of cork upward, would be as if we endeavoured to make
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cork penetrate a medium as dense as gold: and tho’ we were to adopt the extravagant opinions which have been advanced concerning the progression of pores, yet however porous we suppose a body, if it be not all pore, the argument holds equally; the fluid must be as dense as the body in order to give every particle its impulse. It has been asserted that Sir Isaac Newton’s philosophy leads in its consequences to Atheism: perhaps not without reason. For if matter by any powers or properties given to it, can produce the order of the visible world, and even generate thought; why may it not have possessed such properties by inherent right? and where is the necessity of a God? matter is, according to the mechanic philosophy capable of acting most wisely and most beneficently without Wisdom or Benevolence; and what more does the Atheist assert? if matter possess those properties, why might it not have possessed them from all eternity? Sir Isaac Newton’s Deity seems to be alternately operose and indolent; to have delegated so much power as to make it inconceivable what he can have reserved. He is dethroned by Vice-regent second causes. We seem placed here to acquire a knowledge of effects. Whenever we would pierce into the Adyta of Causation, we bewilder ourselves; and all, that laborious Conjecture can do, is to fill up the gaps of imagination. We are restless, because invisible things are not the objects of vision—and philosophical systems, for the most part, are received not for their Truth, but in proportion as they attribute to Causes a suscepti-bility of being seen, whenever our visual organs shall have become sufficiently powerful. Joan of Arc (1796) 41–2. Fluids and atoms, conceptually, were fashionable partners. Cf a note on Swedenborg Oeconomia regni animalis (1740) 361 (tipped in) where Coleridge complained about Swedenborg’s use of “fluid”, as a thing, instead of a power. ff96–95v slavery to the Eye…emancipate his mind: Two important Coleridgian phrases. On the first cf Chap VI BL (CC) I 107, ShC II iii, and a note on Scotus Erigena quoted in Lect 9 P Lects (CC) n 18. On the second, see Joan of Arc Bk II, and The Destiny of Nations. For Fancy is the power That first unsensualizes the dark mind,… (lines 80–1): PW I 134. The Destiny of Nations, first published complete in SL 1817, has other links with this entry. Pythagoras…all-permeating Ether…intended hieroglyphically: Coleridge was here disagreeing with Tennemann, who doubted whether the Pythagoreans held this belief: Tennemann 1 210 fn, with a marginal note by Coleridge. Coleridge defended Pythagoras against literalists and denigrators; cf marginal notes on Tennemann I 107–8, 120 quoted in notes to Lect 2 P Lects (CC) ff43–53, especially nn 33, 60, 61, 64. an Object that is its own Subject…Mind: See 5215 f23v and n. f95 Congreve Rocket: A military rocket invented by Sir William Congreve (1772– 1828), fired from small boats against the French from 1805 onwards. Wellington was not
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enthusiastic about them because of their dangerous unreliability. Congreve, a prolific inventor, was in 1811 elected F.R.S. Electricity…Forces: Electricity as a manifestation of the E-W power of Oxygen— Hydrogen (4555 f49). E=its particularization, W=its universalization. f94v anima, spiritus, &c aura ignea: “soul, spirit, &c fiery air”. (for Air and Water…Electricity): Are these the lines to be omitted as peculiar opinions? And is this instruction an indication that Coleridge was dictating from the notebook here? f94 Mr Abernethie…Life…organization: Coleridge has misread: Cf “…ife must be something independent of organization, since it is able to execute the same functions with much diversified structure, and even in some instances with scarcely, any appearance of, organization at all.” An Enquiry (cited above) 48. See also Abernethy’s statement in his Introductory Lectures exhibiting some of Mr Hunter’s Opinions respecting Life and Diseases (1815), “…life does not depend on organization. Mr Hunter…was of this opinion.” Possibly Coleridge was thinking of Abernethy’s Physiological Lectures (1817) 85 where he used organization as revealed by comparative anatomy to classify animal creation, as did Hunter, Cuvier, and others, so that he stated that in form, though not in mind, “In the African, we perceive a link connecting the human form with the extremely diversified forms of the brute creation.” νis υitæ: “life force”. f93v Pan harmonicon: A mechanical musical instrument imitating a whole orchestra, invented c 1800. προτερον: For the same play on preposterous see CN III 3421 and n; on the fallacy, cf SM: LS (CC) 104 and n, also CM I under Böhme Works I 125–7. (“Mind is the result of Structure”, says Mr Lawrence): See 4931 f96 and n; cf TL 34, 60 foll, and footnotes contraverting Lawrence passim, and Lect 12 P Lects (CC) 558– 583. 4519 27.72 Arians and Unitarians: I.e. disbelievers in the divinity of Christ the former: I.e. Romanism. the cause of Luther: See 4594, 4595, 4599, and CN III index under Luther. Coleridge felt that Romanism was nearer true belief because it had the forms and heritage of that belief; but, because it had overlaid these with its own traditions, it moved steadily away, while Lutheranism, despite its aberrations from the main line, had the tendency to move closer to the true faith because it continued actively seeking it. 4520 27.73 The entry, not in Coleridge’s hand, appears to be an attempt to teach him the capital and lower-case letters of the alphabet in German script. The letters were written across the top of ff90−89v, the open spread of the book reversed, the German script being carefully written underneath the corresponding letters. Coleridge later wrote 4521 below, in avoidance of them. 4521 27.74 Yet One word more on Subtle Fluids: See 4518 and n. (egöitas, Ichheit…): “something I-like (egoity, I-hood)” or Coleridge’s “selfness”. I do not attribute Individuality…to Life as Life: Although life was described in TL 43, 67 as “the principle of individuation, or the power which unites a given all into a whole”, Coleridge was anxious to insist that “Life itself is not a thing—a self-subsistent hypostasis—but an act and process…” TL 94.
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For Coleridge’s general objections to imponderable fluids, see TT 29 June 1833, where he also distinguished between matter and body. See also 4923. uncertain rash hints in Jacob Behmen: It is uncertain of which passages Coleridge was thinking; possibly Chaps IX–X in The Three Principles\ or possibly this is a general recollection of Böhme’s many references to the eternal life-principle as fluid. flammulæ errantes: “wandering flamelets”. f92 the theme is, as old as the days of Job: Cf Job 16:18, where Job uses the term “blood” as equivalent to life. apparently authorized by Moses: Deut 12:23. Epoptæ: “Clear Seers”; see 4671, 4808 and nn. Coleridge uses the word of Böhme; see CM under Böhme Works I i 79–80 ed n5. of the intercirculation Cf an endless perichoresis, or circular internal Generation in CN III 3575; see 5270 below, also CN III 4359 and n. Gennēēsis…: the “generation/the being generated/genesis”. On the reciprocity of Father, Son, and the Spirit, see 5249 and n. Apostacy and Anastasis: Of many references see 5081 and n. tertium aliquid e Synthesi: “a third something out of the synthesis”. υis systematis solaris: “power of the solar system”. f91v Principium Individuationis: “Principle of Individuation”; see f92v above. nisus: “tendency/striving” as in Blumenbach’s nisus formativius/“Bildungstrieb”; see CN III 3744 and n; also below 4553 f47v. realize…thingify: Cf CN II 2784 and CN III 3587; Coleridge often made the point of the connexion between res “thing” and realize and also between res and reor “think”. fieri microcosmus: “to become an epitome/microcosm”. Stuffs…Stoffen: Because life is a process, not a thing, and assuming, as Coleridge said, Simile, Simili gaudet, plants in their living processes co-operate with the productive powers of matter, instead of absorbing elementary Stuffs or passive bodies. See 4566, 4579, 4646 and nn on vegetable processes. eodem modo quo fluidum seminale…vehere habetur: “in the same way as a seminal fluid is held to enmesh and convey a seminal air”. f91 involucrum: “outer covering”; in OED in only a botanical sense. Coleridge often used it for the cocoon of a chrysalis; see 4832, also CN III 4408, Chap XII BL (CC) I 242. SIMILE SIMILI GAUDET…NISI INTER DIFFERENTIA: “Like rejoices in Like”, or “There is no action except of Likes upon Likes”; and “Whatever is similar is not the same”, or “There is no action except between different things”. NECQUE IN CONTRARIUM…NON DIFFERENS, AGITUR: “There is no action upon a Contrary (heterogene) nor upon anything exactly the same”. vectum…vehiculum: “the carried…the carrier”. ∆υvαµιν τήυ οχουµνην, και το οχηµα: “the power carried and the carrier”. quod ad fines, non intra fines est: “what is at the limits is not within the limits”. f90v menstruum: “solvent/fluid”. + and −ε in Water: “the positive and negative alliance in water”; see below 4577 f69v. Water=Hydrogen Oxygen: “Water is Hydrogen combined with Oxygen”. Πρωτον µεν ‘Yδωρ, and παντα εκ του υδατος: “water was first” and “all things from water”; cf The Friend (CC) I 437 fn; Lect 2 P Lects (CC) ff19–21.
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Heraclitic and Parmenidean πυρ υδατι ενοχουµενον, ειδες: “fire carried in water, moist water-like fire”. Coleridge’s Greek here is reminiscent of Thales, Empedocles, and a Heraclitus-like passage in Hippocrates. On the Heraclitean flux see CN III 4351 and n; on Parmenides see above 4518 f96v. Here, as also in 4776, Coleridge alluded to the second less important part of Parmenides’s poem, where he described the “way” of opinion (as opposed to the “way” of truth) and gave a conventional Ionian-style cosmology. The vital Principle…of John Hunter: In A Treatise on the Blood (1794) 77 Hunter presented life as “a living principle, some power”. Abernethy Enquiry (1814) 42 said, “The phaenomena of electricity and life correspond”, which Coleridge interpreted as a reduction of living process to a subtle, imponderable fluid; cf 4518 and n. f90 the latter: the former:: agens:: patiens: I.e. The vital fluid is to the vital principle as active to passive (Coleridge’s slip for the reverse); for his use of this form of equation see e.g. 4649, 4832, 5074, 5197. Vis υiυax (or Vis υiυendi): “the vital power” (or “power of living”). materiam υitæ: “matter of life”. f89v natura naturata: “nature natured/phenomenalized”. See CN III 4397 f50v and n, also 4646, 4843, 5150 below. 1. ab intra…3. Organismus υitalis: “1. from within, 2. from without, 3. together within=1. Power of life, 2. Matter of life, 3. the vital organism”. Natura gemina…et re-creatur: “twin Nature, which is made and makes, re-creates and is re-created”; cf 4854 below. f89 ηλεκτρικο-πυροειδες: “electrico-fire-like”. 4522 27.75 Zeno’s demonstrations of the non-existence of Motion …: Tennemann refers to them (I 196) as “scharfsinnig”. Coleridge’s annotation of Tennemann at this point (I 197–201) is among his wittiest; see Lect 3 P Lects (CC) ff73–77 and n 32 where the Tennemann note is quoted in part. See also The Friend (CC) I 437. In her edition of The Friend (1850) I 88–9, SC records De Quincey’s report of Coleridge’s saying of Zeno “…the apparent absurdity in the Grecian problem arises thus,—because it assumes the infinite divisibility of space, but drops out of view the corresponding infinity of time”, and his comment: “There was a flash of lightning which illuminated a darkness that had existed for twenty-three centuries”. SC refers to the prior solutions of Aristotle and Leibnitz of the Zenonian paradox, adding “but the latter part, namely, the detection of the sophism of applying to an idea conditions only properly applicable to sensuous phaenomena, belongs to Mr. Coleridge himself’. It is this aspect of the problem Coleridge is trying to illuminate further here—at least the entry appears to be an expansion of the arguments against Tennemann cited above. And see 4797 on Zeno’s error in fluxions. f88 Tartini’s third-sound: Giuseppe Tartini (1692–1770) in his work on Principles and Power of Harmony described in Chap I how two sounds being made by any musical instrument, and held for a time, a third sound will be heard. His observation was new and led to new methods of playing the violin. cui objicitur seu Objectum est: “to which it is object-ed, or is object”. In the last paragraph the reference to Color is more comprehensible in the light of 4929 f30, and 4855, 5290, 5446, 5447 and nn. Also CN II 3116 and n.
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4523 27.76 The entry is another example of Coleridge’s interest in the grammatical form I am as a term for God, drawn from Ex 3:14, “And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thou shalt say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you”. Cf e.g. 5243, 5244 and nn, and 4644 f25v, 4671, 5413. See also Chap XII BL (CC) I 272 and fn. causative but not transitive: Causative, rather than transitive because God is causa sui (4644 f25v), i.e. the action does not literally pass over to another. Fieri facio me ipsum: “I make myself to come into being”. Facio me esse quod sum: “I make myself to be what I am”. my Son: in the eternal: Coleridge used his variation of Ps 2:7, quoted in Acts 13:33 and Heb 1:5 and 5:5, as a means of indicating the relation of the Son to the Father. Since God is above time (see CN III 4418n), Coleridge interpreted this day as eternal present and added ever to reinforce the idea of timelessness, again as in 4644 f25v. Thus he indicated that the I Am diversifies itself into the Son, who is God Alter et Idem, other and the same. See 4829 f56v, 5249, 5256, 5297 and 5413. νους ποιων: ποιων: “mind making/doing”. —πραττων:—“doing/acting” —πασχων:—“being acted upon” from Aristotle: Tennemann states that in De anima III 4 and 5 Aristotle said that in the process of thinking, the mind is acted upon (πάσχειν) by the idea thought even as it creates (ποιεĩν) ideas by thinking. In the Metaphysics I I, VI I, XI I, and De Anima III 10 he distinguishes between mental activity which has an outward purpose (ποεĩν) and that which is its own purpose (πράττειν), Coleridge’s active transitive and active intransitive. Cf Tennemann III 63–64, 198–200. 4524 27.77 Idea Idearum: “Idea of Ideas”. Principium Principiorum: “Principle of Principles”. Erkenntniss [“knowledge”]=an asymptot…to the Idea: The application to philosophy of the simile from mathematics, of the straight line that approaches but never quite meets the curve, appears to be original with Coleridge; Farrar later (1860) used it of the inadequate relation of language to thought (OED under asymptot). The point being made about philosophy as a geometry of limitations, never arriving by ratiocination at absolutes, is recurrent in Coleridge’s work; see e.g. 4517 f97v and n. 4525 27.78 Probably taken from Tennemann, a footnote at I 202, where the reference to Simplicius in Physica Aristot. p. 30 is as Coleridge has it, but with the addition “aus Eudemus Physica”. Tennemann’s Greek here, as elsewhere, is unaccented and has only rough breathings. Did Coleridge add the breathings and accents, or did he go back to Tennemann’s source or some other? (The quotation does not appear in Stanley or Brucker, the two other histories of philosophy he used.) See an interest in Simplicius in CN III 3418 and n. Tr: “They say that Zeno used to say, that if someone would explain to him what the One is, he would explain the things that exist.” On Zeno see 4522 and n. 4526 27.79 As to Forgery: Possibly this is a reference to some contemporary incident, controversy, or legislation about forgery. John Taylor Coleridge was interested in the legal aspects of forgery and annotated Blackstone on the subject; Blackstone noticed the increasing severity of the laws against it, a capital crime at this time.
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The Greek pun depends on the fact that the word for king, sounds like an axe, an instrument not of mercy but of capital punishment; cf 4723 below. 4527 27.80 Again probably from Tennemann 1 164 quoting words put into the mouth of Xenophanes by Timon of Phlius; to anglicize the title, the fuller reference is to Sextus Empiricus’s Outline Sketches of Pyrrhonism 1 § 224. Coleridge’s Xenomanes is a slip in copying for Xenophanes. In Lect 3 P Lects (CC) ff70–72, 90 Coleridge referred to Xenophanes in enthusiastic terms. In his notes for that lecture (N 25 f138v) he told himself “to end with the affecting lines of Xenophanes”, i.e. probably these lines.
Would that I too had attained a mind compacted of wisdom, Both ways casting my eyes; but the treacherous pathway deceived me. Old that I was and as yet unversed in the doubts of the sceptic For in whatever direction I turned my mind in its questing All was resolved into One and the Same: All ever-existing Into one selfsame nature returning shaped itself all ways. Tr R.G.Bury Sextus Empiricus I (LCL 1933) 137. 4528 27.81 The entry is in pencil. Presumably the date of the newspaper roughly dates the entry. The advertisement Coleridge quoted was headed: REMOVAL OF ST. JAMES’s HAYMARKET, something naturally to catch his attention; it went on to say that a meeting called to take steps to prevent the destruction, “to be held in the British-Coffee-house, TO-MORROW, the 24th Instant, WILL NOT TAKE PLACE”, i.e. it was not, as the typography suggested, an announcement of the end of the world. 4529 27.82 Later than 4528, i.e. probably later than 23 April 1819. The anecdote is part of a tale in Johann Heinrich Jung Theorie der Geister-Kunde, in einer Natur- Vernunft- und Bibelmässigen Beantwortung der Frage: Was υon Ahnungen, Gesichten und Geistererscheinungen geglaubt und nicht geglaubt werden müsste (Nuremberg 1808) 270–1; Coleridge’s annotated copy is in the BM. The parenthesis in the first sentence is his own. His condensation possibly leaves it unclear that it was Augustus who had been warned by his doctor against wine on account of an inflamed tooth, and Field-Marshal Grumbkow, having been ordered by Friedrich to see Augustus to the border, was cautioned to impose the order. Himself being drunk and having broken some ribs, Grumbkow failed in his duty to Augustus who, next morning before continuing his journey, “clad only in an open shirt and a short Polish fur coat”, gave his farewell messages for his friend Friedrich to Grumbkow. Shortly afterwards [the ghost of] Augustus appeared to the Field-Marshall in this very dress.
“My dear Grumbkow! I have just died at Warsaw.” Coleridge’s spelling of geöfneten is Jung’s, in this badly printed book. In the footnote a not was omitted: had [not] been.
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4530 27.83 exponent of a circle…: Cf Phillips The New World of English Words (6th ed 1706) cited by OED under exponent: “Exponent of the Ratio or Proportion between two Numbers or Quantities, is the Quotient arising, when the Antecedent is divided by the Consequent. Thus 6 is the Exponent of the Ratio that 30 has to 5”. Had Coleridge been studying some mathematics? See also 4538, 4843, 4929, 4940 and nn for various uses of exponent. He applied the term to nonmathematical subjects in Omniana (1812) II 12: “…whatever is common to all languages, in all climates, at all times, and in all stages of civilization, must be the Exponent and Consequent of the common consciousness of man, as man”. OED cites this as the first use in the sense of “one who sets forth”. In AR 314– 15 C referred to “forms and exponents of Christ’s mediation in St Paul’s writings”, and to “metaphorical exponents”. Exponential: After Bailey, the OED cites Coleridge 1809–10 Friend for this word in the (“rare”) sense of “the function of setting forth or exhibiting”; but the word did not appear in The Friend until the 1818 edition. See The Friend (CC) I 477. 4531 27.66 The entry was written with the notebook being used in the normal direction as at first (see 4580n) and was probably on the page before 4580 was written. Thomas Waldron Hornbuckle went as a sizar to St John’s College, Cambridge shortly after WW had left, became Fellow (1799–1827) and Master in 1823, when Derwent Coleridge was an undergraduate there. 4532 27.68 Weekly dates; cf 4509. These run at right-angles on the gutter side of the page. Was Gillman’s regimen for opium control based on weekly amounts or weekly abstinences? Coleridge’s last public lecture had been given on 29 March (CN III 4504), so that possibly a firm regimen was now being attempted. 4533 27.69 Written on the inside back cover, at any date within the period of this notebook, for convenient reference? For a table of Coleridge’s signs and symbols see App A at the end of this volume. Cf CN III 4403. X, Y, Z mean…Quantities or Degrees: The meaning here is apparently each fof] any not yet determined Quantities or Degrees. 4534 18.322 AP 249; EHC dated this entry 1811–12 with some that preceded it in N 18 (4081–4104) on what evidence is not clear. There appears to be a decided break in the use of N 18 at this point, this and the entries that follow here, all in ink, being written in the more even hand of the Highgate desk; the c May 1819 seems a reasonable date (see 4537) for them all up to 4538. Calumny: A frequent topic with Coleridge, both personal and general; see The Friend (CC) II 22–3 fn, I 357. Allophoby: Not in OED: “fear of another, others”, from “other”, “fear”. hëautepithymy: Not in OED: “self-love”, from “oneself”, θυµία, “appetite, desire, lust”; see CN III 3293, 3746, 3777, 3873, 4335 and cf CN III 4007 on the subject in general. by his consciousness…in a lump: LS: SM (CC) Judges of his own life 89 Coleridge dwelt on the social need for an “increased consciousness”. See e.g. CN III 3632, 3976f29. For an ethical application socially, see e.g. CN III 4067. was painfully aware in himself of the destructive potential of the less-than-fully conscious states, as e.g. in a letter of 1811 to Matilda Betham: “…the more I force away my attention from any
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inward distress, the worse it becomes after—& what I keep out of my mind or rather keep down in a state of under-consciousness, is sure to act meanwhile with its whole power of poison on my Body—” CL III 310. See also 5008 and n. anthropic: The earliest use cited in OED is dated 1859: “of a human sort”. 4535 18.323 This entry was already f164 before 4536 was written around it. Grazzini, alias, writes Pagolo IV: Antonio Francesco Grazzini (1503–1584) a Florentine dramatist and novelist, founded in 1540 the Accademia degli Umidi (later Accademia Fiorentina) in which his acad-emy name was Il Lasca (the mullet). In 1550 he founded the Accademia della Crusca, known for its philological research and its dictionary. Coleridge refers to Grazzini as an authority on the spelling Pagolo, a Sienese form used also by other Renaissance Tuscans, e.g. Benvenuto Cellini. It appeared in Grazzini’s introduction to La Prima et la Seconda Cena, Novelle di Anton Francesco Grazzini dello Il Lasca (London 1756 and 1793) xxiii where he referred to Pagolo III. Crab—which the Egyptians made the symbol…: William Mure in A Dissertation on the Calendar and Zodiac of Ancient Egypt (Edinburgh 1832) 125–7 said that the sign of the summer solstice, on the Greek zodiac a crab, was “an unmeaning emblem as referred to egyptian mythology”; but in many ancient cults the sign of Cancer was associated with the moving constellations and planets. See D.W.Thompson Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1890) XXXIX iii 604–11. On Egyptian antiquities see also 4794 and 4839. 4536 18.324 Symbols: These are correlated with other lists of symbols in this volume and other places, in App A.Cf CN II 2383, 2384, III 4226, 4241, and a related discussion in III 3312. f164 the Mosaic Cosmogony: With the concise parallel here of the Mosaic account, cf CN III 4418, and also below 4554, 4555, 4556, 4558, 4929 and nn. The sequence of Coleridge’s argument, using polar logic, is a modified but fairly close parallel to Steffens’s philosophical cosmogony in his Grundzüge 26, 36–48, 41–8; see CN III 4223n. Steffens in Beyträge 262–3 also asserted that carbon and nitrogen constitute the metals; but for Coleridge’s reservations on the point see 5155n. Coleridge’s argument, based on our present chemistry, was that integral bodies are generated by the polar interaction of gravitation and light (4929 f30) and generate by their interaction metallic bodies. See The Friend (CC) I 470 for a discussion of the chemical elements as symbols of powers. f164v Azote and Hydrogen…the same Element or Stuff diversely modified: Azote (Lavoisier’s name for what came to be called nitrogen), though distinct from hydrogen, is like it in being a gas that does not support life. The modification to which Coleridge referred must be conceived of as a modification of some intermediate direction on the Compass of Nature (SW), azote to the S, hydrogen to the W; in 4555 Coleridge associated azote, or nitrogen, with repulsion, hydrogen with dilation (as in 4556). For a further discussion of these powers, see CN III 4418, 4420 f20, and in this volume 4556 and nn. For Coleridge’s earlier use of the metaphor of “the Compass of Nature”, see CN III 4420 f20. In 1818 the QJSLA v 170 began to refer to nitrogen as well as to azote. There had been prolonged debate among chemists about the chemical status of nitrogen, and Davy had speculated that hydrogen and nitrogen might be forms of the same species of matter. Cf T.H.Levere Affinity and Matter (Oxford 1971) 45–6.
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the Arithmi of the Pythagoreans: See 5294, 5296, 5406 and nn. On the equating of these here with the “material numerations” of the Cabbalists (and also with the Ideas of Plato) see Lect 2 P Lects (CC) ff39–49 and notes, 60, 61 in which pertinent marginalia on Tennemann are quoted. See also On the Prometheus of Aeschylus: LR II 342–3. On the Cabbala cf 5069 f24 and n. X(1=Hydrogen or Dilation (westerly modification of X). X(2=Nitrogen or Repulsion (southerly modification of X). Z (Carbon+X(2=Metals: Cf 5090, and CN III 4420 where Coleridge classifies the metals as Carbon-azotes; see also TL 69: “From the infusible, though evaporable, diamond to nitrogen itself, the metallic nature of which has long been suspected by chemists, though still under the mistaken notion of an oxyde, we trace a series of metals from the maximum of coherence to positive fluidity, in all ordinary temperatures, we mean”. Metal+Water=Chrystals: See CN III 4433, 4454, 4455 on chrystallization. cycles of Individuation…: With the remainder of the entry cf, on the definition of life as a “tendency to individuation”, TL passim (esp 42). One notes that Coleridge’s crucial four elements, carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen, were the four of greatest interest to organic chemistry, at this time a new and exciting field, providing a connexion between the sciences of matter—physics, chemistry, geology—and the biological sciences. For Coleridge chemistry thus had a pivotal position. semina, organismi, ωα: “seeds”, “organisms”, “eggs”. Aλη Θεια+ΩOXY(2=Man. Here the emphasis is on the meaning “divine breath”; see CN III 4319 f125 and n; and in this volume, 4870 ff60–61, 5256 and nn. I.e. the Breath of God + seeds (or organisms), counteraction (or contraction) under the predominance of Oxygen, Nitrogen=Man. 4537 18.325 “By the end of 1819 he [Morgan] was again under arrest”. Chambers 291. Morgan, possibly already ill by this May date, (he was about to have a stroke in Nov 1819) died in 1819–20. S Life and C IV 361, CL IV 977. On Coleridge’s relation with the Morgans see CN III 4108n and 4329n. the night before: Meaning that he had dreamt the night before, i.e. Wed May 5th, about WW and SH, “[her] most beautiful breast uncovered”; see CN I 1718 and n. 4538 18.326 The entry appears to rise out of reflexions on and objections to Schelling’s Einleitung in 1818 and early 1819; see CN III 4397 f50v, 4435n, 4449, 4450, 4453 and nn. Abstraction as distinguished from Generalization was a subject of frequent interest— see e.g. The Friend (CC) I (493 fn) 520–1 and nn—and Schelling probably provoked the distinction here in the Einleitung cited above (5, 22, 27, 49). See also 4630, 4656, 4657, 4674, and nn. J.H.Green, who in his Hunterian Oration, Mental Dynamics (1847), expounded many of C’s ideas, explained the terms Abstraction and Generalization neatly, as “indispensable aids, by noting the different in the like, and the like in the different, to the naming, sorting, and classing of all the materials, of which sensible and conscious experience is composed”. He added a footnote (14–15) framed in terms close to this entry: “Abstraction designates the process, by which, in contemplating any object, our thoughts are directed to some one part or property exclusively, withdrawing our attention from the rest. Generalization indicates the process, by which the mind occupies itself
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with like parts or properties in dissimilar objects, and in consequence of the likeness includes them in one genus or kind.” See also 5108 and n. individuity: See also 5297 f22. Coleridge appears to use the word in the third sense given by OED, after Fuller and Hobbes, as an intenser unity or continuity of identity. forma formans ab intra: “the form that forms from within”; cf CN II 2543 and n, 2550. circumstantia: “a surrounding”; “circumstances”, “attribute”, “quality”. f166 Exponent: On the use of this word in various contexts see 4530 and n. Thus from the Plant she abstracts…and generalizing…she produces the Insect Race: The conception of life as a power, central for Coleridge, was developed in TL 35–7, 40, 42, 44, 49–58; cf 4951n, 5161; cf 4935 and n. f166v excitancy: OED for this word cites Coleridge, a note on Luther’s Table Talk in LR IV 25. With this whole passage cf TL 50–2. one Activity…no Product without an Antecedent Power: What Coleridge took to be the neglect or blurring of this dynamic originating power and the consequent hylozoism, Spinozism, or pantheism, came to be his chief objection to Schelling, considerably modifying the enthusiasm expressed in Chap IX BL; see CN III 4445, 4449, 4450 and nn. f167 the process itself, in which THE ONE reυeals its Being in two opposite …modes of Existence, I designate…Polarity: In contrast with Schelling’s concept of polarity as descriptive of the Absolute, Coleridge affirmed an Antecedent One, of which the polarity principle is an exponent and a generated product. See e.g. 5248 f37v. Thesis and Antithesis (in English, Position and Counterposition): Cf TL 51. Schelling used the Latin. a Point producing itself into a Line: In 4513 the concept is referred to the ancients; cf Schelling Einleitung 32–3 and see also 4784, 4843 f118v, 4974, which have much in common with this entry. Entry 4984 extends and applies the concept. f168v Thus Oxyde of Mercury produces…: Cf the illustration of hydrogen and oxygen producing water, in The Friend (CC) I 94fn. 4539 27.90 Charles Lamb’s poem, here in his own hand, first appeared in The Examiner for Sunday and Monday, 20, 21 June 1819. The entry would therefore not likely be later than that date. The last two lines were written on f72v when it was blank, and where 4550 later had to avoid it; in fact the order in which entries were made in the notebook suggests that Lamb wrote it in before Coleridge went to Green’s on 8 June (see 4543 and 4550 and nn). Did he pay Coleridge a visit on the preceding Sunday, June 6th? There are minor variations. In line 5, plough and spade are interchanged in the Examiner version. The version in L Works IV 59–60 shows variants in line 6 and 12 from both this MS and the Examiner version; they look like errors in transcription. 4540 27.31 20 years ago: 1800? Cf CN I 1842 and n. This entry was quoted in the Introduction to Phil Lects (1949) 60–1, where in Lect XIII a similar attack on idealism and materialism was made. Broadly Coleridge objected to Berkeley’s “esse est percipi” and his disbelief in abstract ideas. A fuller development of the objections to Berkeley, based specifically on a reading of A Treatise concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge is to be found in 5276, 5280, 5283, and similar criticism of the confusion of sensation with perception is levelled also at Schelling and the Naturphilosophen, e.g. in 5286 and many other places.
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it is assumed that Perception is but a sort of, or…derivative from, Sensation: As Berkeley seems to say in many places, e.g., Principles § 87: “Colour, figure, motion, extension and the like, considered only as so many sensations in the mind, are perfectly known, there being nothing in them which is not perceived”. Is not sensibility just as mysterious, equally datum, haud intellectum: “given rather than understood”. Based on Berkeley’s Principles § 90 (or similar passages): “Again, the things perceived by sense may be termed eternal…in that they are not generated from within, by the mind itself, but imprinted by a spirit distinct from that which perceives them”. f36 in genere: “in general”. percipere: “to perceive”. scire: “to know”. qui percipit, percipit aliquid: “one who perceives perceives something”. f37 the dim commencement of self-consciousness: Cf “Mem…how much lies below his own Consciousness” (CN I 1554); “depths of Being below and radicative of, all Consciousness” (CN I 6); “consciously, uncons[ciously], semi-consciously” (CN I 1575); “the mysterious gradations of consciousness” (CN III 3362); but references to degrees of consciousness are numerous. In 1806 Coleridge invented the word “subconsciousness” (CN II 2915). See also 4545 where the subject continued to tease him. See also 5167 and n. His concept of “no memory, ergo the act of Being not memorable” seems clearly to be a struggle to find a vocabulary that came a hundred years later. 4541 27.32 Coleridge appears to be constructing a system or diagram, tripartite at several levels, for the study of Forms of existence, mechanical, chemical, vegetable, animal, up to the Brain (f39) where Form sinks under Form and approaches to Formlessness. From f39v onwards the systematizing is of human physiological elements which lead (f41) to Intellectual Production as the Product, which is here become a Genesis, or Gennēma, “a Birth/a Becoming” or “a Thing born/Offspring” (4521 f92 above). Up to this point although Coleridge appears to be constructing a base for his theory of life or organization of substances, preparatory perhaps to a section of the Op Max (MS) he was amalgamating the considerable literature produced by such contemporaries as Everard Home, Thomas Thomson, Charles Hatchett, William Brande, and in general much of the scientific work going on at the Royal Institution or appearing in the Transactions of the Royal Society. Much of this revolved around, for and against, John Hunter’s theory of life (TL 17–19). In all this Coleridge is on solid English earth. Beyond this point, f41 onwards, he soars into the Dimensionless and begins to use a language influenced by (even while in disagreement with them) the transcendental theories and vocabulary of Steffens and Oken. Coleridge may also be remembering here Blumenbach’s lectures or his Institutiones physiologicae, both of which begin with the fluids. Coleridge referred in The Friend (CC) I 154, and in a letter of 1818, to the English translation by John Elliotson (2nd ed 1817). CL IV 886. It is clear that he also had his eye on Steffens Beyträge, on p 74 of which he wrote: Herein I differ from Steffens, to whom I am deeply indebted for the leading Idea, in the mode and direction of these Actions. First, I more cautiously bear in mind a distinction taught by Steffens himself, or plainly
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implied and of which which he is almost every where losing sight— viz. between three great Vital Powers, the Zoo-dynamic Triad, Reproduction, Irritability and Sensibility; and the organic Systems in which this or that or the other is predominant. I carefully keep separate in my mind for instance, the glandulo-venous System from the Reproductivity, as its paramount Power, the Musculo-arterial from the Irritability, which is its Primate; and the Cerebro-nervous System from the Sensibility, as its highest and especial Power. Cf 5425 and n. Solid…properly Hollow: I.e. Solid as opposite to Hollow; see App A. Fest: “fixed/firm”. Combine the Solid with the Fluid, and we have Systems: Possibly derived from Cuvier Comparative Anatomy tr William Ross (1802) 20–33; see CN III 4356 and n. J.H.Green’s lectures at the Royal College of Surgeons followed Cuvier, especially his Règne animal (see CN III 4357n), and in a vocabulary similar to that used by Coleridge in this entry. f38 Chyle: See 4646 and n. f38v Adductive…Abductive: Adductive is in OED but not Abductive. Abducent and adducent had long been used in physiological works. Reproduction…Irritability…Sensibility: See 4929 f29v and n; also CL VI 598–9. f39 Extremes meet: See e.g. 4830, 5015, 5416 and 5402. The Senses are outward Brains: Cf 5143 f15v. f40v Ourin: “Urine”, from the Greek ανυς: “anus”. testicles & brain convolutes: In Gall and Spurzheim’s plates? See CN III 4355, CN IV 4763 and nn. Coleridge's more recent reading, Lectures on Anatomy by Everard Home, had one volume of magnificent and detailed plates; see 4580 f71 and 4646 and nn. supinduction: Superinduction? f41 Length, Breadth, Depth: Standard symbols for the three stages/levels of powers in Schelling's Naturphilosophie; see e.g. Zeitschrift für spekulativ Physik I (1800) Pt i 112– 24 and Pt ii 4–16. f41v Mathesis: “Learning”, or as here “Mathematics”, transliterated from the Greek; cf below, f42 Mathesis or Perception. 9 is no less real…than I: See 4555 f49, 4625 f27. a true×of 8: A true multiplying of eight; for Coleridge’s symbols see App A. the Soul may be disembodied: See 5291 and n. 4542 27.33 On his regretted neglect of mathematics in school and university, see a note on Böhme 1 i 219 (in CM I) quoted in CN II 2894n. The Platonic Superscription “Let no one ignorant of geometry enter here” quoted there, also below in 4672, and in this entry, is correct, not as in Brucker Historia critica philosophiæ (2nd ed 1767) I 641 or in Enfield’s abridgement; see The Watchman (CC) 34 and n. In LS (CC) 173 he translated without quoting it. 4543 27.34 The entry was written with a blunt or stubby pencil. These places are on the road along which Coleridge travelled 8 June 1819 to visit Joseph Henry Green at St Lawrence, Essex; see CL IV 943.
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From Runsells he would have gone, according to Cary’s New Itinerary (1819), to Snoreham, Steeple, and St Lawrence. The notes were made on the way out, as indicated by Brookstreet (to the Left Weald Church on a Hill, woody), where it still is, on the left, and woody. See 4547. Certain other entries in this N may well have been the product of this visit— 8–29 June—and perhaps also 4873 and others in N 21½; it is, e.g., tempting to date some of the nearby entries at this time, 4544 onwards. See 4566 and n, and the notebook tables for N 27, N 28 (June 1819). 4544 27.35 The distinction between attraction and astringency, as two kinds of attractive power one of which draws other things to itself, the other conserves or maintains itself, led Coleridge to question whether repulsion may be similarly conservative. In 4555 f48v and 4556 where attraction and repulsion appear in a list of powers, this point was not made. For further refinements, see in CM Coleridge’s note on Boehme Aurora: Works 1 i 62: “Attraction modified by Contraction is indeed Astringency, and the cause of Hardness (or relative Cohesion) Coherence, crystallization, and vegetative forms—likewise of colors—as Oxyds of the elementary Carbon…. Truly, therefore it ‘locketh’ likewise into Death, & ‘generates Death’. It is the Northern Power, that accumulates Land towards the N.E.” See another note also in CM on the same work, I i 78. But cf also CN III 4359. 4545 27.36 Expanding the discussion of memory in 4540? Objective Perception×Objective Memory: In CN II 2384, CN III 4241, and 4403 Coleridge treated the×symbol here as the usual multiplication sign. In 5098 he noticed the inadequacy of the=sign, saying that for philosophical purposes three signs are needed for “equivalent to”, “one with”, and “the same as”. Here the×has at least two meanings: i.e. belongs to, “produces”, or “is produced by”—as on ƒ44v where objective perception and memory are distinguished from subjective by being governed by (1) choice as opposed to necessity and (2) by conscious as opposed to natural (unconscious?) processes, and (3) conceptual units by association, nexus as opposed to primary fragmentary forceful nisus. See an application of or a step towards this theorizing in 4630. At the same time, Coleridge was using the two diagonals in each× to indicate connexion between Objective or Subjective Memory and Subjective Perception and Objective Memory. He says at once that he has provided this device at the expense of the true meaning of the words. f44 Objective Memory…Subjective Memory: Cf Swedenborg Heaven and Hell § 463: “Man has an external memory and an internal memory; an external memory which belongs to his natural man, and an internal memory which belongs to his spiritual man”. Tr J.R.Rendell (1937). per antithesin: “by antithesis”. f45 Objective Unity…the very opposite of true (i.e. Subjective) Unity: It is tempting to see here as in 4540 above an anticipation of later theories of the role of conscious and unconscious processes. Yet if Coleridge is with the future he is also with the Schoolmen on the significance of memory in considering the unity of experience, the soul; see e.g. CN I 973A. indistinguishable Multeity: See CN III 4352n; also 4554, 4556 and n. unitas “phenomenal unity”, “unity of appearances”. In seeing here a possible reconciliation of Leibnitz and Kant does Coleridge imply that there was an
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inherent conflict although both accepted a twoworld concept, of noumena and phenomena, plurality and unity? Is he thinking of Leibnitz’s monadology as in some sort Spinozistic and pantheistic, or at least of this frequent charge against Leibnitz, and that the notion of subjective and objective concord in perception would make the Rhodian leap from his ontology to Kant’s critical idealism? f45v per antithesin requisitam: “by the required antithesis”. Internal Vision in Clair Voyance—magnetique: See 4908 f68v and n. 4546 27.84 On the futility of attempting to defend Christianity on purely literal and historical evidence see also e.g. 5158, and 5264 and nn below; in a letter to Blackwood 30 June 1819 Coleridge said he had “half a mind to write a book to be called Religion defended against its defenders” CL IV 944–5. 4547 27.86 In pencil. See 4543 and n about the journey to St Lawrence, Essex, and the Greens. Moats Farm: On modern Ordnance Survey maps as in old title deeds, this is Mott’s Farm, about half a mile north east of St Lawrence, about a mile from the estuary of the River Blackwater, the arm of the Sea; the station (coastguard station?) is now replaced by a nuclear power station. On Centrifugal Centripetal see 4929, 4555 f50v and nn; on Fluid Firmamental see 4541 f37v, again 4555, and 4558 and nn. If Coleridge and Green were discussing these matters as they ate cherries on 9 and 10 June 1819, we have an approximate date for these entries. 4548 27.87 The entry is one among a number in which Coleridge is speculating on racial origins after reading Blumenbach, Kant, and others; see also 4668, 4866, and 4984. Blumenbach set out to investigate variations in human physique, and whether these were produced by “Verartung” i.e. “degeneration”, (not in his use a pejorative term). In Ueber die natürlichen Verschiedenheiten im Menschengeschlechte (Leipzig 1798), Coleridge’s annotated copy of which is in the BM, Blumenbach predicated a process of stimulus and response in “the animal machine” (68) affected by climate, diet, way of life, training, and Bildungstrieb (73), a coinage Coleridge found useful, for the immanent impulse to self-determination. Although Coleridge does not appear to have annotated this work until 1828, he was clearly using it here. See CM I under Blumenbach; also CN III 3744 and n. Generosus…Degener: Cf C&S (CC) 35 where “stirps generosa seu historica” (undegenerate or historic stock) is attributed to “that portion of the Semitic and Japetic races that had not degenerated”. f81v the Tents of Shem: Gen 9:27. f81 Semitic Race forbidden to intermarry with the Descendants of Ham: I.e. the Canaanites; Gen 24:3, 37; 38:2; 46:10. Cf 4856 below. f80 geographical position of Blumenbach’s five Races: Blumenbach, assuming a separate act of creation for each species (Menschengeschlechte 89), put the Caucasian race in Europe (except for Finland), in West Asia to the River Obi, the Red Sea, and the Ganges, and in North Africa; the Mongolian in the remainder of Asia (except for Malaya and South India), in Finland, and among the Eskimos from the Bering Straits to Greenland; the Ethiopian in all of Africa but the north; and the Malayan in the South Seas, the Marianas, the Phillippines, Molucca, the Indies, and Malaya (ibid 205–8).
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Kantian diagnostic of Race: Kant in “Von den verschiedenen Racen der Menschen”, not annotated in any of Coleridge’s three copies in the BM of Kant VS II 609–32. Assuming a single act of creation, Kant held that racial differentiation came from climatic conditioning and that the Caucasian was the original race from which four others descended. f79v germinal and Substantiating Idea of Blumenbach’s’. Blumenbach’s Menschengeschlechte was frankly (210–11) based on Kant, and expanded Kant’s views. distinguish diversity from variety…from difference in Degree: Kant (VS II 609–10) argued that if all races were not of one genus no interbreeding among them would be possible. bold assumption, that the Caucasian had no evolution: Kant (VS II 629) held that it was the original race; see f80 above. In a later lecture, “Bestimmung der Begriffes einer Menschen-race” (VS III 633–60), also unannotated, Kant revised his views singling out colour as the definitive factor. f78 all the influences which Blumenbach supposes: Blumenbach Menschengeschlechte (91–122) thought interbreeding and other additional factors such as the amount of carbon in the blood, as well as climate and environment, were causes of degeneration and diversification. 4549 27.85 This entry was written after 4547 was on the page, and perhaps also after 4548, the end being fitted into a blank space at the foot of f82v between the two. On Saturday 8 April 1820 Coleridge described a projected work with this title in a letter to Allsop, telling him that “some eighteen months ago” he had planned it and quoting this entry as part of “the first chapter”. CL V 35–6. The entry may be close to the date of the letter to Allsop, indeed it appears to have been transcribed, with minor alterations, for the letter. It is datable therefore between 10 June 1819 and 8 April 1820, probably nearer to the later date. There is a MS fragment in the BM entitled “Weather-bound Travellers/Rough Sketch of the Introd. circumstances” (BM Add MSS 34,225 ff84–84v). In the sketch, a stranded party of men and women, on continuing up a “Sea Loch in the Hebrides”, were to find that “the Loch loses itself in a perfect maze among Rocks”; the scene was to be described from “the Scotch Tour, Trossacs from the Wood Man’s Hut—the Caverns”. (CN I 1464, 1469, 1471). The sketch, full of enthusiasm for the landscape, continues with intentions to describe Edinburgh using a letter Coleridge wrote to RS in Sept 1803 (CL II 988–9). This entry and the MS fragment (appearing in SWF) throw some light on Coleridge’s methods of tapping his early notebooks for later works. Senachy: Or senachie/sennachie, a bard, a teller of tales and legends in the Scottish or Irish Highlands. Alnaschar-like: The reference is to the Arabian fable told in The Spectator No. 535, of a worthless Persian glass-seller, Alnaschar, who acted out his day-dream of acquiring wealth and then, spurning his princess wife, kicked her with his foot. 4550 27.89 The chemistry of the first five paragraphs came from §§ 156–8 Brande Manual 104–5; see below 4560 and n. f73 but mixed…dissolve Gold: Nitric acid mixed with muriatic (hydrochloric) acid turns yellow and dissolves gold. Coleridge, his eye on Steffens, would see this as a rotation through the compass of nature (see 4555 and n) from the South Pole (nitrogen) towards gold, or a contraction, and thus linked Brande and Steffens.
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Aqua Regia: A mixture of concentrated hydrochloric acid and nitric acid that dissolves the “noble” metals gold and platinum. Nitrogen is as Steffens first asserted: I.e. in Beyträge 40. Anglicè conjectured: One of Coleridge’s objections to the Naturphilosophen was their aggressive dogmatism; see 4753n. differently contracted: See Contraction and Dilation in 4555 and n. Stoffs (as Steffens mistakenly supposes): In Geognostisch-geologische Aufsätze; see 4564 f57v n, 4551 and n. f72v not 4 primary powers: I.e., the N S E and W of the Compass of Nature; see 4555 and n. Coleridge broke with Steffens at this point (see 4562 and n). He returned to the use of three powers—Dilation, Contraction, and Cohesion—and materia, principium essendi passiυum (“matter, the passive principle of being”). The combination of materia plus one or two or three of the primary powers, each of which could be positive or negative, produces one of the secondary powers or qualities. This is much more a part of the fabric of Schelling’s system than of Steffens’s, e.g. in Schelling Naturphilosophie 311–21. Coleridge’s marginal notes on Steffens Beyträge 169–74 are also pertinent, appearing in CM. My tetragrammaton: See 4556 and 5346. the Prothesis’. See above 4513 f5 and n. Principium simpliciter essendi: “the Principle of simply being”, as opposed to the passive principle. 4551 27.88 The entry continues Coleridge’s attempts to explain the Creation story of Gen I in scientific terms. gathering together of the Land…formation of the Sea: Gen 1:9–10. See 5119 and n. close the actuation…necessary to all alike: I.e. the working of the Logos on the Chaos in a general way; see 4554 and n. self-actuity: I.e. the power to activate itself. Actuity is not in OED. the Love in the Distinction: I.e. the working of the Logos on the Chaos rendering the Multeity progressively more distinct; see 5249 and n. the capability of ascent; Coleridge was perhaps thinking of the separation of land and sea as an early manifestation of the tendency to individuation, and further evidence of an ascending series. See TL 36–7 and 4553, 4580, 5144 f24v and nn. flat bladders: Steffens Grundzüge 69–70. Tr: “the activity on the part of the plants goes merely so far as assimilation of the mass…the roots are their stomach; the leaves [Blätter] however are their lungs.” the process of vegetation of masses: Coleridge appears to be postulating, as Steffens did (Grundzüge 46), a stage in which earthy matter itself vegetates prior to the vegetable creation; this theory is opposed to the absurdities of the precipitation scheme (f75). f75v Indistinction with Unity: I.e. the Chaos; see 4554n. the first Water, the second Earth—i.e. Metal: Or more clearly, the first [act gives form to] Water, the second [to] Earth see 4555 and n. Analogies of Water & Metal, relatively…to Light: I.e. because both are masses which do not absorb Light, they provide evidence of a prelife stage in Creation; for Coleridge’s definition of Life as an absorption of Light as an inward entelechy, see 4677 and n. Tentation…Apostacy. I.e. tempting Chaos out of its indistinctness into more ordered forms; see 4554 and n.
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predominance of Light over Heat…marks…vegetable creation: See 4639 and n, 4855n. Interuening of the 4th day: Gen 1:14–19, the creation of sun, moon, and stars, between the creation of vegetation and animals. f75 absurdities of the Precipitation Scheme: See 5103, 5119, and nn. Essential difference between E[ast]=Metal…as in W[est]…and E[ast]×[identified with] W[est]: Steffens Grundzüge 47 associated oxygen with East, hydrogen with West in the polar scheme, as Coleridge did in 4555. Steffens described the E-W polarity as being under the power of Light, and as manifesting itself through electrical opposites (41). But in the constitution of the metals Steffens stressed the N-S axis although he invoked the whole quadruplicity in all substances (41, 47). Coleridge, however, was here stressing the E-W polarity in relation to the metals, but differing from Steffens and Schelling also in stressing the Essential difference between the polarity of the E-W axis supporting Light, and a centrality of E-W axis incorporating Light. f74v Punctum saliens: “outstanding point”. kernel of the earth as Metallic: Steffens Geognostisch-geologische Aufsätze 228: Tr: “We have asserted that the kernel of the earth is metallic and that thus the different metals are the unalterable Supporters of the variable directions”. Directions, O and H: O, i.e. negative electricity, East, and H positive electricity, West, on the Compass of Nature. all the metals in the Mountains: Steffens ibid said that all the metals found in mountains are a partial reduction from older substances. To Schubert’s objection that according to this assumption metals must have been most prevalent in the oldest mountains, Steffens replied that this was by no means the case, as the granite mountains are the most impoverished in metals. Coleridge knew Schubert’s work; see CN III 4457 and n, and in this volume 4781n. organic action of Granite: Coleridge substituted organic action for “Verwicklung des Individuallen” (development of individualization) in the Steffens page cited above. Steffens saw the principle of individuation as the soul, and as an opposite to mass as universality; Coleridge saw the life of the metals as process, a manifestation of the tendency to individuate; see 4559 and n. Steffens’s geology studied the mode of the selfdevelopment of vegetative and animalizing tendencies in nature. (Beyträge Pt I). 4552 27.37 Coleridge was visiting J.H.Green at this date, who presumably took in Bell’s Weekly Messenger. As Coleridge says, the words of the first sentence between quotation marks, and those below from “It was therefore agreed…thro’ the Head”, are the words of the newspaper. His account of what lay between is much more melodramatic in his Germanundergraduate style than the newspaper’s prosaic story, which after the first sentence continues: “under the following extraordinary circumstances. This young man arrived in Vienna, accompanied by an intimate friend, and fell in love with a young lady, who also engaged the affections of his friend. A challenge ensued, but each felt a strong repugnance to take the life of the other. It was therefore agreed…” an auf ewig dein: “an ever-thine”. In his bracketted phrases Coleridge appears to be correcting the newspaper translation. 4553 27.38 By means of many curious terms and conjunctions of terms here Coleridge was trying to illustrate the ascent of life.
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Calorific pot[entiated] into υitific: Vitific, not in OED, has not entered into use: “life producing”. Lucific: Used in 4604, “light-making”. sensific: OED dates the first use 1822, “producing sensation”. per nisum ascensivum: “by an ascending impulse”. On nisus see above 4521n. Linea recta directione eluctans: “a line striving to keep a straight course”. formæ in τò super formam adluctantes: “forms striving towards what is above form”. co-adunation: Used by Coleridge in various contexts; CN in 3605 f118, 4158, 4176, 4186; see also The Friend (CC) I 90 (political and social); see also TL 44. These are parallel tripartite systems; cf 4541 and n above. 1. Abdominal=Attraction: Matter is appropriated and potenziated into bodily organs. 2. Pectoral=Oscillation: In respiration, circulation of blood and air produces/generates heat which supports life. 3. Cerebral=Convergence divergent: Light focussed by the eyes is made sensible by the actions of the brain. Thus the scheme takes us from matter to organic life (digestion) from physicochemical activity to vivifying processes, and from external stimuli to the growth of the senses. In each of the three systems a similar ascent is followed. 1. Ponderific, Chrystallific(2, organific(3: From mere materiality to the first stage of individuation (chrystallific) to organic life. 2. Calorific, Caloric(2, Zöìc(3: From physical activity, through the power of heat (even though a fluid is described) to life, which is organic and produces the sensation of heat. Zöic, pertaining to life, was to be increasingly discussed by Coleridge; see also 4617, 4862, 4880 and nn. 3. Lucific, lucid(2, sensific (3: From potential light to the producing of the sensation of light. Coleridge illustrates the various ascents by a series of generated geometric forms from the cone to the hyperbola which tends to infinity, just as life strives endlessly to ascend. 4554 27.39 Written on f48v after the lower half of f48 preceding was left blank. The entry and following ones represent Coleridge’s return to his speculations on Gen I, as a scientifically accurate account of the Creation, begun in CN III 4418. To him the universe exists and has existed from the beginning in a noumenal-phenomenal dimension consisting of paired opposites—e.g. Good-Evil, Light-Darkness, AttractionRepulsion, etc.—with Will as the dynamic, whether cosmic or individual, which causes the noumenals to split and then to phenomenalize. The entire stasis exists in an additional dimension as well, the actual-potential, so that, for example, while Light may exist noumenally and phenomenalize itself in lights, there is implicit in this actuality the potential of Darkness. Coleridge seems to assume that at one time, if time is to be used as a convenient tool, the basic state of the universe was that the Good existed in actuality, the Evil only in potential; see 5143 and n; also C&S (CC) 234; CL V 561. Long before the Creation and Fall recorded in Gen I—2, there was a cosmic inversion (metaphorized by the “War in Heaven” of Rev 12:7–9 and Isa 14:12–15) in which the Good fell back into potential being because the Evil had actualized itself through the apostate Will and then phenomenalized itself into the Chaos; see 5249 f40, 4843 and nn. God’s action at the Creation was the beginning of the process of re-actualizing the Good and rendering it into
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an order so that it could work itself out in manifestations, in relation to their paired opposites, that would lead to an eventual de-actualizing of Evil. The history of nature and the history of man to Coleridge are a record of that process, and the Bible a metaphoric record of that history. Hence he considers Gen I to be an accurate account of the first step. The later notebooks continue these speculations. Multeity: That which the Chaos becomes after the power of Creation has begun to work. In Op Max (MS VCL SMS 29) Vol 1 f15, multeity and unity represent polar phases in “a state, in which the law of polarity has commenced”. The word was a favourite with Coleridge, suggesting a greater degree of indistinctness than multitude; see CN III 4352 and n. actualized: I.e. the result of the first polar resolution from or within the Chaos, to be distinguished from the actualizing of evil which produced the Chaos. eâ ipsâ actualitate: “by that very actuality”. Word’s influence: For Coleridge’s view that the Word was the aspect of God which began the actualizing process see e.g. 5162, 5297. cohesion…from attraction appropriative: I.e. as a thesis subsumptive from Attraction; see CN III 4223, 4225 and nn, and in this volume 4544, 4555, 4661 and nn. The genesis of cohesion is explained in Op Max (MS) I f70. In a marginal note on Schelling Ideen 366 Coleridge wrote, “I but imperfectly understand this Chapter on Cohesion”. Steffens Beyträge Pt I uses coherence (mechanical cohesion in a body) as a diagnostic and basis of classification of metals, bases, etc. not mere Volatility but Repulsion: Repulsion being more clearly an active power. I am wrong: i.e. in using the term Volatility instead of Repulsion—in 4555 f49. Possibly this entry should be read as a footnote to 4555. 4555 27.40 It is essential to understand that the basic Characters or symbols are used in a systematic and orderly way by Coleridge, to represent: (a) chemical elements, e.g. carbon/, nitrogen hydrogen~etc, oxygen….or (b) (cosmic) powers, e.g. attraction/, repulsion and~dilation, ····contraction. Or sometimes for products of powers. Or (c) points on the Compass of Nature, e.g./North, South,…. East~West. For other symbols see App A. Dialogues de finibus et methodo Philosophiæ: “Dialogues on the ends and methods of Philosophy”; the Thursday evening conversations? See the letter to Allsop [30 Mar 1820] CL V 28. This entry is a key document for the understanding of Coleridge’s theory of matter, and closely parallels CN III 4226, an entry of [1814–15], In this later note Coleridge left out the Ideal, cosmical, potential, vital, and organic sections, so that what we have is a very complete development of the chemical. In 4226 (N 18), he used the N-S E-W notation of Steffens Grundzüge 40–8 41–42, but in N 27 he developed his own symbols and greatly expanded his ideas. Coleridge’s use of chemical substances as symbols of powers in the Compass of Nature is closely based on Steffens Grundzüge 40–8. Carbon=Attraction.−Magnetism. North Ideally…: I.e. Carbon, in the Compass of Nature, is Attraction, negative Magnetism, and ideal North. See CN III 4223: “The ideal Product will unite the Strongest Compulsion (of all actions under one, and vice versa) with the greatest freedom/of each particular action.” The ideal power lies in a perfect
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balance, like true North. Its physical manifestation, magnetism, deviates from true North under the influence of other forces. Its chemical manifestation, carbon, is represented by a fixed deviation at N by NE. In this paragraph Coleridge has collected all the terms relating to the NorthSouth axis, or the bipolar axis of magnetism; see 4929, and 4513 and nn. The reader can trace the development of this concept by referring to a letter to Tulk Sept 1817 (CL IV 775), where attraction and repulsion are attributed to gravitation, and magnetism is combined with electricity to form “chemism”. In another letter to Tulk dated 12 Jan I 818 (CL IV 808) Coleridge referred to the bipolar axis as the noun substantive of nature, the power of length and the line of magnetism. In CN III 4226 (1814–15) the North-South axis is the line of being, in CN III 4414 (May 1818) it is gravitation, in CN III 4418 (Aug 1818) it is Mosaic darkness, and in CN III 4433 (Aug-Sep 1818) it is the carbon-azote axis. By the time Coleridge was writing this note and later 4929 [1822?] he had greatly refined his terminology. Each pole was given its own set of terms drawn from such diverse sources as German Naturphilosophie and Brande’s Manual of Chemistry, incorporating Davy’s “iodine”, “chlorine”, etc. The terms are up-to-date for 1819—striking at a time when chemical nomenclature was changing rapidly—and are here arranged in the following order: symbolic or ideal element; force; power; ideal direction; real direction and phenomenific; see CN in 4420 f18v. North ideally. N. by N.E. really: See CN III 4223 f86: “If so, the Ideal as anterior to the Real, and as Possibility, must ever appear to the Contemplator in Time as transcending the Real in Number—& that too exactly double—”. Cf Schelling Einleitung (1799) 3. Tr: “If it is the obligation of the Transcendental philosophy to subordinate the real to the ideal, it is by the same token the obligation of natural philosophy to explain the ideal by the real.” By proceeding from the ideal to the real, Coleridge was writing in the transcendental mode rather than in the mode of natural philosophy. Cf CN III 4436 f28v, where he wrote of God and the universe in the following terms: “Hence the Ideal-Real, the Real-Ideal, the Synthesis, or Indifference, and the Identity—reconstrues itself in the third, i.e. the Indifference or Synthesis”. He is building links between Schelling’s Transcendentalphilosophie and the Mosaic account, identifying Schelling’s Ideelle and Reelle with God and the universe; i.e. Ideelle is “God as producer” and Reelle is “what is produced”. In CN III 4449 Coleridge attributed all Schelling’s errors to a single error, “the making Nature absolute”, referring to the Einleitung. Here he may have been seeking to avoid this error by placing true North in the ideal, and real North as N. by N.E., or in the realm of nature. Cf Schelling Einleitung 42: Tr: “Both systems depart somewhat from the merely Ideal. Absolute synthesis is just as much merely Ideal as absolute analysis. The real occurs first in nature as a product, but nature, thought of as neither absolute involution nor absolute evolution, is the product…. The product is what is conceived of between both extremes.” Coleridge has separated the two aspects of nature as product and production, and made nature a product (real) of the ideal. Hence the ideal-real opposition, perhaps as a reminder to himself and a talisman against the errors of pantheism. Thus he has also separated the ideal from the natural, or at least from nature. For Schelling the ideal is different from the real in that it is conscious and primitive, while the real is unconscious and derived. Coleridge conceived of this conscious primitive state as an attribute of the divine.
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Following this, he put the chemical processes of nature into a context of outworkings of the ideal-real, noumenal-phenomenal dyads, which he worked up in CN III 4418. Nitrogen=Repulsion, as the power of separative: I.e. this is the antithetic parallel of the preceding paragraph concerning Carbon, giving the bipolar aspect of nature under the ideal powers. f48v when coerced and restrained: Cohesion is the cause of the syntropy of/Carbon Nitrogen (CN III 4223) or “the universal property without which matter could and not be.” (CN III 4433). This footnote paragraph, although written on the facing folio, clearly relates to the discussion on bipolar axes. (It would have been more appropriately placed after “Centrality”.) Coleridge was wrestling with the relation of cohesion to the NS and E-W axes and the circumferential line. He was not so much concerned with a relation in propositional logic as with a relation in generative logic. He wrote clearly in CN III 4435 of cohesion subsuming attraction and repulsion. See also 4550 f72v, “My tetragrammaton” In the letter to Tulk (Jan 1818) CL IV 807, he made cohesion one of the properties of North, in opposition to incoherence. In his Mosaic exegesis, CN III 4418, written probably in the same year, neither word appears. It is as if he were making an effort to get along without them. But in the fall of 1818, he returned in CN III 4433 to the idea of cohesion. By now he had dissociated cohesion from the direction North and the force of attraction. It became a universal property “over” the directions. This is a return to the ideas of CN III 4223 [1814–15]. Coherency is the power related to North (to be replaced by magnetism here in 4555) and incoherency is its opposite. This section should be read as a further attempt to develop the idea of cohesion as a general or universal property. Cohesion: Coleridge, with his usual sensitivity to language, has seen that the English cohesion is more nearly equivalent than coherence to the German Kohaerenz. Cf Steffens Grundzüge 25: “so ist die Kohaerenz Ausdruck des Allgemeinen im Besondern”. Schelling used Cohäsionskraft in Einleitung 42; see CN III 4433. Predominance: Cf e.g. in Grundzüge 45–7 Steffens’s ueberwiegend. Steffens had two relations in mind: unter der Potenz des, “under the power of’, and preponderance. In Steffens’s system the members of his quadruplicity enter into relations with one another in pairs, and the pairs are subject to further “predominance” on the part of the finite and the infinite. These predominated pairs generate the powers, which in turn exercise power over the pairs. Coleridge removed the concept of power from this level altogether. Cf Steffens Grundzüge 42: Tr: “Because the various, different relationships of the quadruplicity go into infinity, so there is also an infinite variety of different powers, in which the duplicity is there under the power of weight (magnetic polarity) and the duplicity under the power of light (electrical polarity) together with the identity of the relative opposites (as weight and light)”. It is significant that in CN III 4226 Coleridge did not use the notion of power in general (as in “under the power of”) and listed only particular powers. But here in f48v, predominance produces power, i.e. a kind of restraint. Attraction & Repulsion become powers: See above 4544. f49 Oxygen. Contraction.−Elect. East: The terms of the E-W bipolar hemispheric line (see 4929 f29). Particularization: See CN III 3312. Steffens introduced the concept of the particular as das Besondern Grundzüge. Coleridge characteristically made it a process rather than a thing.
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Universalization: The opposite process; drawn from Steffens’s word Allgemeinen, ibid. Centrality, One of the five powers constitutive of nature. See 4558 f52v, 5168 and nn. 4=1, and then 1+4=5: See 4558 below. The four which equal one unit, or totality, are Prothesis, Thesis and Antithesis, Synthesis, unified centrally in their indifference or dynamic reconciliation, and also circumferentially or as cardinal points in Coleridge’s Compass of Nature. This totality provides an additional concept of centrality over and above the temporality of the unit. Pan: All, or Totality. the 5th Numen: The fifth power. and 3rd Deity. The idea of a reciprocal tension between paired opposites, which opposites are the essence of the creation process; see CN III 4418. the offspring of the two Deities: The synthesis of the thetic-antithetic sides of the dyad; see 4558 f52v. / and Attraction and Repulsion. their numina…and~: Their subsumptive ideas Contraction and Dilation. f49v Caloric: See 5144 f23v and n. f50 Earths: As in 4929 f30v, where Coleridge has a subdivision of the Combust or a by-product of combustion (synthesis of combustive and combustible), comprising substances like clay (acidulous earth) and lime (alkaloid earth). Cf CN III 4420. Alkalies there are identified with the combustible part of the triad and also with the N-S axis. It is perhaps for this reason that Coleridge considers including the metals under the Alkalies in CN III 4420 f18v. N.B.Earths and Alkalies are also really decomponible, but metals only ideally so. metallëity: A word used frequently by Coleridge, e.g. in 4929. OED for the second use cites Coleridge TL 69. In CN III 4226 Metal is the chemical component of the centre, associated with Galvanism. In Steffens’s theory, Grundzüge 8, 9, the noble metals comprise the whole quadruplicity of the Compass of Nature, but in his general classification of metals, the N-S axis predominated (ibid 90). See also Beyträge 195, which Coleridge broadly followed here. In his note on it (170–3) he made gold the centre or point of indifference between North and South, water also being the centre, but representing the point of indifference between the superficies East and West. In CN III 4433 he placed gold in the centre. There is also a note on Steffens Geognostischgeologische Aufsätze 229–30, where Coleridge defined metallëity as “that of which all the metals are but modifications”. In CN III 4420 he made it clear that he had tied the metals to the North-South line, by classifying them as “Carbon-azotes”. But Coleridge meant this dynamically, and saw a difference between this view and that of Steffens. In a marginal note on Beyträge 262–3 he wrote: “It is an error therefore and an inconsistency in Steffens to speak of the Metals as composed of Carbon and Nitrogen—unless where these are taken as the names of the Power predominant in each. And even so, yet not as composed of them, but as constituted by them. S.T.C.” William Nicholson A Dictionary of Practical and Theoretical Chemistry (1808). The “initial letters inclosed” do not so appear in Nicholson’s earlier Dictionary of Chemistry (2 vols 1795). f50v Water…Fire…Air: Coleridge was apparently thinking of the relation of the scientific symbols to the Story of Creation in Gen I. See CN III 4418. The basic action of
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the Creation was the separation of Light from Darkness, which reciprocity ignifies, or caused Fire. The Second step is the separation of Air from Water. “form”. an interesting cancellation; cf 4541 f37v. “without form”; the reference of M…µ is apparently to the step in the Creation which separated the firmament from the waters, Gen 1:6, 7, but also seems to suggest the whole idea of setting up noumenal paired opposites and then creating forms to phenomenalize them as distinctions from the Chaos. See CN III 4418. −µ=Fluid: See CN III 4418: “as the definition of a Fluid in the world of phenomena is a matter, the parts of which are not inter distinguishable by figure so here in a higher sense they are absolutely indistinguished and co-inherent, so that neither is there an outness or an in-ness neither a whole nor parts, but a mere Allness—all without each”. M…Firmamental’. I.e. solid, as opposed to fluid; see e.g. 4868 f59v, “The muscles and Arteries, the firmamental and the fluid”. λ Logos: “the Word”, or power of God in rendering the Chaos into order, “the supporting Harmonies of Logic”; cf CN III 4418 and 4554. πν: Greek πνευµα, “Spirit”. For Coleridge’s use of this to indicate the generic noumenal behind phenomenal forms see e.g. 5377. ‘Y Matter: From the Greek ζ life: from the Greek,
meaning “matter”. meaning “life”.
meaning “body”. ∑ Body: from the Greek σζ: organization of life and body together. The entire order of the list seems to follow that of Gen I, from the creation of light through the separation of air and water to the creation of life in plants, animals, and man, through the working of the Word on the Chaos to distinguish noumenals and set up their correspondent phenomenalizations. f51 Oxygen as a Stuff or Element of the Laboratory: See CN III 3587 and The Friend (CC) I 470. marks of Relation: See CN III 4403, and above 4533 and nn; for a full table of these characters see App A. 4556 27.41 The entry continues the scientific analysis of the Creation story in Gen I. See CN III 4418 and 4554 and 4555 above. It is more particularly descriptive of the action on the Chaos in the earliest steps of the Creation. The difference: Coleridge is returning to an idea he mooted in 4544 and was working on in 4555 f48v where he described Attraction and Repulsion as powers of N-S, the substantive powers, while Contraction and Dilation were the powers of E-W, the modifying powers. He now further differentiated them in the Creation. See CN in 4420 and above 4555 f48v and n. Attract.+Repul. and Contraction+Dilation: See 4544. These are dyads derivative from the Prothesis Light-Darkness, the ContractionDilation one following from the AttractionRepulsion. προπλασµα: “primal plasma”. “Spirit”; see 4555 above and Gen 1:2, “And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters”, i.e. preceding the
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Indistinction + Multeity: See CN III 4352, 4429 and nn. 4545, 4554 above. It becomes an Etwas a mere “something”. Ether: Probably in the older sense of a something which filled the heavens above the air (cf 4518 f95v above), since the entry is focused on events prior to the separation of water and firmament. f52 acts: A key word; primary Attraction and Repulsion are products of a will; they are acts. In order to function in the cosmos they must be reborn of a prior and inherent power, with its paired opposite perhaps, of cohesion-separation. When the Prothesis divided, it gave expression to these powers, as the diagram suggests. This division then gave rise to the subsumptive dyads deriving from it, or “fathered” them, and when the dyads were thus reborn, they were in this sense their own grandsons. See below. We must therefore distinguish: See 4555 above; Coleridge distinguishes between two sets of powers, one primary and one secondary resulting from the interaction of the primary. In 4555 f48v Cohesion was a product of the interaction of attraction and repulsion. Here, Cohesion in the form of Continuity served as the prothesis for the next set of polarities, continuity-discontinuity, the synthesis of which was the power of cohesion, i.e. continuity between discontinuous bodies. In this entry cohesion was not derived directly from Attraction and Repulsion but only produced by them in a nascent state. Attraction and repulsion constitute Cohesion, and reappear in it as polar powers (Contraction and Dilation) with the difference that Attraction and Repulsion are now powers, whereas, formerly they were acts. the Eve of Creation: Gen 1:5, “And the evening and the morning were the first day”. Coleridge viewed this as the most basic step of Creation, the reappearance of the dyads as the second stage, or Generations of the first Morning. 4557 27.42 The entry continues from 4556 on the matter of how Cohesion inhered before the prothetic division and in the subsumptive theses-antitheses before it was “reborn” as a power in the separation of air from water and water from earth according to the Creation story of Gen I. The symbols here appear in 4555 and their mode of combination is explained in 4696, where Coleridge states that stands for the product of Contraction and Repulsion with Repulsion predominant, and thus also for the product of Attraction and Repulsion with Repulsion predominant. The entry should also be read in the light of 4559. This entry, like 4559 is part of an attempt to work from the cosmic to the phenomenific; see 4555 f50v and n above. In the Op Max (MS) I ff64–9, Coleridge concluded this section of the anastatic process “by a distinct recapitulation and specification of the powers hitherto evolved in the order of their birth and epiphany”. Paraphrased, the first sentence of the entry reads: The less the product of RepulsionAttraction with Repulsion predominant is modified by Contraction (Oxygen), and the product of Attraction-Repulsion with Attraction predominant is modified by Dilation (Hydrogen), the more distant must they be from each other, so that attraction (Carbon) to Repulsion (Nitrogen) shall be as the Earth to the Air, for Contraction (Oxygen) counteracting Repulsion (Nitrogen) tends to assimilate it to (not identify it with) Carbon. αλλο µεν, oυ δε τ’εναντιον γενος: “other, yet not the opposite kind”. The reasoning is that when Attraction-Repulsion is modified by Contraction, and Repulsion-Attraction by Dilation, there is less Cohesion in the dyads, so that as the process goes forward Attraction and Repulsion will be separated as powers, echoed in the phenomenalized
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separation of Earth and Air; for Contraction counteracting Repulsion tends to assimilate into Attraction, but not to identify with Attraction. Thus the disparateness of Contraction from one dyad, and Attraction from another gives two powers, dissimilar but not paired opposites of each other. the whole Anastasis: I.e. the whole creation of the world as an entity; see CN III 4449 f29v and n; also 4662. 4558 27.43 is 4=1: see 4555 f49 above. Centrality is produced by the intersections of the four directions (N, S, E, W) and is therefore a fifth. the Pan: See 4555 f49 above. Cf CN III 4424 and n: “Polarity the law of all manifestation, the one universal pantoplast”, also 4436. or 2 Divi with the two numina: Divi, “Deities”, numina, “divine powers”; see again 4555 f49 above. co-involution: Another word coined by Coleridge to express the complex interaction of opposites; not in OED. Gravity; see CN III 4418 ff14v–15. The separation of Light from Darkness gives birth to Gravitation. In the system of Steffens Gravitation =Darkness. f53 central>: Central light, or the Sun. the 5th day: In Gen 1:14–19 the creation of the sun is the fourth day. Coleridge recognized his error as he proceeded; see f53v below. the first separates the Light from the Darkness: see CN 4418 and 4556 above. Attraction and Repulsion make the first separation, in which Gravitation is nascent. Later Gravitation, reborn as a power (distinct from its idea) is paired with the centralization of Light and Darkness. Vespertine Act: Evening Act. See 4556 above. f53v Spirit of Life…distinctions of the Life: Just as Coleridge viewed the creation of Light as first noumenal, in the first prothetic division, and later as centralized phenomenalization in the Sun on the fourth day, he seemed to view the action of the Word on the Chaos as producing generic or noumenal life before the individualizations in plant, animal, and man as phenomenal life. the essential forms become central: I.e. the incorporations (placing into bodily forms) of life tend to centralise in the sense that these forms become unique individuals while at the same time following “each after its kind” in order. This to Coleridge was the essence of the entire Creation: the rendering of the Chaos into phenomenal order following from a noumenal order. Comets : Veget :: Planets : Animal?: Do comets stand to vegetable life as planets do to animal? See 4555 and n. Parabola versus the Ellipse: See 4633 and n; cf 5300 and n. Eve of Creation=1: See 4556 and 4562 below. For his purposes Coleridge counted the pre-creational act of ordering the Chaos into Prothesis as a distinct day of Creation. Again see CN III 4418 ff12–12v. all…all successively: The Pan above; see f52v. now Fluid, now Firmamental: See 4555 f50v above, 4868 f53v below; evidently Coleridge was thinking here in a temporal pattern, first of the “waters” as the Chaos (Gen 1:2) and later as a division of the Chaos into water and land (Gen 1:6–7).
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There is also a clear reference to physiological discussion about the theory of life. Hunter had agreed that fluid blood had life that was independent of organization. Lawrence, Abernethy’s opponent (4518 ff94–93v), insisted that life depended on organization, i.e. solidity. The debate, fluid vs solid, ran on through the 18th century into the 1820’s. Coleridge repeatedly referred to it, e.g. in 4541, 4724, 4814. 4559 27.44 an act of life anterior to or at least at the minimum of organic function…: Coleridge argued that life “from its utmost latency” (TL 42) operates in the inorganic world as “the tendency to individuation”. See 4521, 4677. Thus the individuation of fluids is an act of life—hence the life of the elements. hydrogenation of azote: the transmutation of (nitrogen) into~ (hydrogen), nitrogen being the more primitive of the two; this form of individuation was a process not unlike the precipitation of rain; see below 4564. Coleridge pointed out that the hydrogen that is produced by transmutation is not the pure power hydrogen, that is to say, universalisation, but the element, or Stoff, in which the power of hydrogen predominates. Transmutation can be seen as a modification of a predominance of power, corresponding to a change of direction in the Compass of Nature. Cf 5144 ff23–23v. 4560 27.45 Coleridge was taking notes from William Thomas Brande Manual 306. Brande was at this time professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution, successor to Davy and associate of Faraday, and probably known to Coleridge personally. There are in the notebooks various disagreements with him, though Coleridge obviously read his Manual thoroughly, and soon after publication 10 June 1819. Coleridge’s chemical entries are frequently taken from Brande, but appear to be directed by his questions arising from his reading of Steffens and the Bible in particular, about the relation of powers to the origins and development of the earth, the life on it, and its mineral and geological formations. Steffens classified the metals according to their coherence, which he co-related with their specific gravity. Mercury as a liquid metal of high specific gravity is a metal in which the S power in the Compass of Nature predominates. Osmium is similarly the first member of a series of metals, a series which Coleridge believed Steffens had predicted in Beyträge 138: (tr) “But Gold and Quicksilver (if we consider Platinum as the last member of a hitherto unknown series, for which we shall give the reasons later) are also the first metals of both series of metals.” Coleridge’s long annotation in his copy concludes: “This must have been written before 1801, three or four years therefore before Vauquelin, Tennant, and Wollaston discovered the Osmium, Iridium, Rhodium and Palladium.” Coleridge seems to be drawing an analogy between mercury and osmium, based on their specific gravities (see 4555), their resistance to acids, and the ease with which they oxidize. Cf Brande Manual 306: “§ 633. Phosphuret of Mercury may be formed by heating phosphorus with oxide of mercury. It is a sectile solid of a bluish black colour.” This note follows logically 4559, because mercury is both a liquid and a metal, requiring therefore special analytical treatment; see CN III 4420 and n, and TL 69. See also 4561 below. Osmium is also discussed in Brande Manual 307–8 § 640: “The leading characters of osmium are its insolubility in the acids, its ready solu-bility in potassa, the facility with which it is oxidized, the singular smell of its oxide, its great volatility, and the purple or blue colour produced in its solution by tincture of galls.”
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4561 27.46 That the existence and development of life was governed by the copresence and relations of solids and fluids was a commonplace of physiology after Haller, clearly presented in Blumenbach Institutiones physiologicae (Göttingen 1798); see CN III 3744n, 4359 and n, also 4541n above. Mercury was a natural starting point for such discussions, as Coleridge’s annotations on Boerhaave A New Method of Chemistry show. See CN III 4414 and CM. Brande in his Manual (294–307). §§ 612–39 discussed mercury. fluid and firmamental: These constitute organic structure just as the three dimensions (length, breadth, and depth) constitute structure in general (see CL IV 769) and also symbolize (4541n) three levels of power. Mercury’s formation of spherical droplets, and its ready volatilization, illustrate the negation of magnetism i.e. the power of length and of attraction-repulsion (see 4555), and the easy triumph of dilation. sulphuret and bisulphuret of Mercury: Brande Manual 304 §§ 627–8 described how these are obtained from Mercury. the 4 powers: East, West, North, South, on the Compass of Nature (4555). Mercury, as both solid and fluid, is there given centrality, from which it takes on weight or specific gravity. Unlike Water it is not continuous, but controlled by attraction and repulsion, it dilates and becomes volatile. f56 For Steffens (Beyträge passim), the development of the earth is a living process, and granite, containing quartz, mica, and feldspar is an important primary rock. Mica is lamellar, Brande Manual 940 § 920. Granite. Quarz pure Silica: I.e. quartz is crystalline ibid 488–9 § 918 properly solid and also an early stage of life (TL 47) since it is a higher degree of individuation than the Figureless chrystallization. Feldspar is solid and relatively amorphous, hence the tertium aliquid of linear and globular, the third something produced by the union of opposites. Granite is described by Brande in §§ 917–23 of his Manual, based on the collection of geological specimens in the Royal Institution which Coleridge had seen. Coleridge was here relating Brande’s analytical description, 488–91 § 918, to his own system of symbols (4555). the essential character of ◊ s [Acids]: There had been a controversy in the science journals from 1814 onwards, among Davy, Thenard, and Gay-Lussac about the nature of acidity, which Lavoisier had hypostasized. genus generalius: “more general class”. diverse from the M◊: I.e. solid acids. 4562 27.47 The entry continues the analysis of the Creation Story dealt with in 4554 to 4558. I was perfectly right…genesis of the Solar system as the 5th day. In 4558 f52v. tho’ mistaken in supposing that Moses had so named it: Gen 1:19; on Coleridge’s acceptance of Moses as the author of Genesis see CN III 4418 f12v. From legislative motives: The account of Creation in Gen 1 to 2:3 moves through six days to the institution of the Jewish Sabbath on the seventh, a Jewish institution which Coleridge evidently considered Moses thus to be validating. On Coleridge’s view that Moses’ motives were political, see 4872. Evening & Morning commence with the Logos…second distinct operation: Coleridge interpreted Gen 1:1 as indicating a complete creational act before the Mosaic first day. Thus it could be counted as an extra day of Creation. See CN III 4418 and 4558.
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According to Coleridge’s Christian reasoning, the creation of man would be on the seventh day and the Sabbath on the first day, i.e. Sunday. organismus cosmicus: “organism of the universe”. Coleridge was evidently shifting to a broader application here, considering the days of Creation as symbolic of eras in the history of the world, a not unusual interpretation. to mark the new creation: I.e. the Christian era; see 2 Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15. Christ has still sent his Spirit: As the Logos worked to order the Chaos and begin the redemptive process, so the Spirit in the new creation is at work; see 4556 above and John 14:26, 15:26, 27; Acts 2; and 9:31. Spirit of Comfort and Prophecy: John 14:26 and Rev 19:10. f57 M+(−µ): firmament (solid)+ fluid from the genesis of the Expansion, □, &c i.e. ether (actualized space), air; see 4555 f50v. Paraphrased, the last sentence of the entry reads: “But though right in the main, yet the mistake of dividing the polarity of solidity and fluidity, from the genesis of the Expansion of ether (actualized space), Air, etc. (Gen 1:6, 7, 8) has led me out of my way and into a jungle”. The birth of form, missing in Gen 1:2, the succession of physical states (waterfluid, dry land-solid, firmamental; firmament, heaven, air-amorphic, expansive) is approached through the powers tested; see 4555. Hence the interest in 4561 in mercury, water, etc. as manifesting different relations of powers. Cf CN III 4325 and 4418: “I have never met with, nor has there ever suggested to my own mind, any tolerable solution of the 6th, 7th, and 8th verses of Genesis I—respecting the Firmament=Heaven, as a division of Waters”. At this point Coleridge apparently abandoned the attempt to reconcile Steffens’s categories with Genesis. He seems to be separating himself from Steffens, who treated the development of + − as prior to and independent of the genesis of the elements. 4563 27.48 Malleable as differenced from ductile: Brande’s Manual 319 § 665 reads: “Gold is so malleable that it may be extended into leaves which do not exceed 1/280,000 of an inch in thickness. It is also very ductile”. See also CN III 4433. smithie: Not in OED in this spelling, but perhaps a variant of smithy, suggesting here “forged as by a smith”. Coleridge looked for a more precise word than malleable, one less associated with the hammering of passive metal in a metalsmith’s shop—blacksmith, silversmith, etc. He was continuing his consideration of the metals as powers, and here in the W-E axis (cf 4555 f50). 4564 27.49 Again Coleridge was reading Brande Manual and bringing English chemistry to bear on the Naturphilosophie of Steffens. He had moved from granite and geology (4561) through malleability (4563) to gold and oxidation. per- or rather sur-meated: A nonce coinage, “super-meated”? Coleridge was refining on Brande’s statement that the electrical discharge passes through a fine wire of gold by suggesting its passage along the surface. The purple powder, as Coleridge suspected, is not an oxide, but merely metallic gold finely divided. Brande said (Manual 319 § 665) it had been “considered as an oxide”. Remember to ask Mr Hatchett: See also 4580 and n. Charles Hatchett was Brande’s teacher and father-in-law, a scientific member of the Committee of Management of the Royal Institution. Coleridge’s question about the weight of the purple powder was related to the modification of power brought about by electrical discharge.
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f57v Muriate of Gold is called by Brande Chloride of Gold Manual 320 § 667. confounded…the Power or ideal Agent, with the particular Stuff in which it predominates—? Cf marginal note on Steffens Geognostisch-geologische Aufsätze 243: If Steffens have made any mistake, or rather oversight, it is in confounding the ideal Direction with the particular form, Oxygen. Long before Sir H. Davy’s attempts to establish the independent existence of the Oxymuriatic as Chlorine, I had anticipated it a priori, tho’ whether as an East by North, or East by South, I could not determine, but I conjectured the former. And such, I doubt not, it is. The note is long and explicit. See also CN III 4420. The ci devant oxymuriatic Acid: Chlorine, so named by Davy, but previously regarded by Lavoisier as a compound of oxygen and a radical. See also Logic (CC) 416–7. Nitrogen…an hydrate of the ideal Azote: I.e. retaining azote, the old word for nitrogen, for the “ideal”, by derivation, “lifeless”. See CN III 4226, 4433 and nn. See also in 4555 Nitrogen…South ideally. South by SW really”, and “Hydrogen…West”—so f49 real azotenitrogen involves a westerly modification of ideal nitrogen. (Here and throughout the chemical elements are symbols of powers as explained in The Friend (CC) I 470, a passage that serves to remind us that at this time the elements were still being discovered, mainly in the laboratories of the Royal Institution.) Davy had raised similar questions in more practical terms, whether e.g. oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen might not all be electrical forms of water. T.H.Levere Affinity and Matter (Oxford 1971) 46. Thus in Coleridge’s dynamic chemistry, the W-E, electrical axis of power, corresponding to oxygen-hydrogen, might predominate over the S (ideal azote/nitrogen). Suppositum philosophicum υel scientificum: “philosophic or scientific Basis”. υis υitæ cosmicæ: “the cosmic life force”. cosmozöic: Not in OED; cosmozöism, the theory that the cosmos has life, is attributed to Cudworth. f58 It is at least a beautiful conception: In raising the question whether the chemical decomposition of water can be equivalent to transmutation, Coleridge appears to refer to J.A.de Luc’s view that water on evaporation changed into a different gas, which could again produce water; J.A.de Luc Idées sur la météorologie (2 vols 1786–7). See 5471n. metastasis of the Terraqueous into the Atmospheric: I.e. evaporation/cloud. the anametastasis of the Atmosphere to the Terraqueous: I.e. condensation/ rain. as the puncta centralia for Hydrogen as the “centre points” for nitrogen. inter et circum jacencies: “what is within and around”. Diamond: Carbon; see 4565 and n. Zöote or Zote: “living” Röote (from fluo): “flowing” (from…“I flow”). : Coined from Greek, meaning “winged/volatile”, and its opposite. Eurrhöe…Antirrhöe: “Easy-flowing”, and the opposite. Pezon: “Pedestrian/wingless”.
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Peteinon, or Potēnon: “Winged”/“Volatile”. 4565 27.50 Fluorine or Pthore: Ampère discussed analogies between fluoric and muriatic gases, and suggested using pthore, the Greek for “destructive”, as the name. Davy wrote on the analogies between fluoric and muriatic gas, later inferring cautiously the possibility of fluorine as a separate principle. Brande Manual 211 § 358. Fluorine corresponds to one of the intermediate powers in the Compass of Nature (cf CN III 4420) and the transition to Diamond and Carbon follows naturally, and thence from the Chrystal structures of Diamond and Quarz to other substances. Coleridge was continuing to seek natural validations for the possibility of essential internal characteristics expressible in a conceptual classification of powers. Cf 4753 and n. f59 Chrystal…Diamond…Carbon: In 4751, possibly about this time, Coleridge returned to what had struck him very early as a joke, in Davy’s first chemistry lectures in the Royal Institution in 1802, the close kinship of diamonds and charcoal (CN I 1098 f28v). Since then he had been reading Steffens Beyträge on the Compass of Nature; see 4555 and n. The hardness of the Diamond makes it plainly N.E. of Quarz: Corresponding to the modification (4555) of Carbon (=Attraction…Fixity) by Oxygen, Contraction…East. Rock Chrystal…: This and the six following paragraphs are based on Brande Manual 327–40 §§ 686–98. On f59v Coleridge’s Fatstone is Fettstein in Brande. f59v what is an Acid: See 4561 and n. the alliance of Con with At-traction: See 4929; also CN III 4414 f10, 4435 f26v, 4449 f30, 4456. On Con- and At- in a non-chemical nonphysical context see Frag 60: PW II 1012. f6o Suppose the Bases divided into two classes, N. and S..: Steffens in Beyträge 14 concluded that the earths are arranged in two opposed rows, siliceous and calcareous, corresponding to the North and South poles in the Compass of Nature. He went on to discuss the relations of earths to metals (178) and the status of the noble metals (138–40), all in the same N-S polarity. some of the rarer Oxides: Brande Manual 336–40 §§ 693–8 discussed those Coleridge mentions here. f61 Platinum—Gold: Steffens Beyträge 138 had proposed that platinum was the last member of a hitherto unknown series in which Coleridge in a marginal note on that passage, placed osmium. See 4560n. 4566 27.51 Brand[e] p. 345: Again the Manual, Chap VI “Of Vegetable Substances” §§ 703–4. f61v Gilbert’s Annals: Annalen der Physik ed 1799–1824 by L.W. Gilbert, contributions from which appeared frequently in Phil Trans and other learned English publications. the younger Saussure: Nicolas Théodore de Saussure (1769–1845) Gay de Lussac: Gay-Lussac (1778–1850), a leading French chemist of his day, was one of the editors of the Annales de Chimie which in III 170–4 (1816) published and edited a paper of Saussure in a way Saussure disapproved of; it was followed in the same volume by Gay-Lussac’s objections III 174–6. “The cause of the motion: I.e. “of the sap” omitted by Coleridge. Zoophobia: The first reference in OED is dated 1901, but not with this meaning: “fear of life”.
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Misothelēsia: Not in OED: Coleridge’s coinage from the Greek, meaning “a hatred of the will”. See 4591 below. f62 our Naturalists of the Anglo-Gallican or School regnant; Such as e.g. William Lawrence; see TL 34, 60 foll and fnn passim. Equisetum: A genus of plants called horse or mare’s tail. f62v υires formatrices: “formative powers”. The crux of Coleridge’s case here, and everywhere. Stoffs: I.e. “materials”, the elements physically identifiable in the laboratory as opposed to ideal or philosophical terms. Viridis and Carbojuge: Green and Coleridge. The entry illustrates Coleridge’s constant concern with the life of nature, and nature’s production of chemical substances which, when identified by chemists, appear as educts. For the dynamic chemists’ distinction between products and educts, see 4579 and n. Of vegetable life and products, see TL 72. all the dictations hitherto: Since c 1 April 1818? This appears to be the date of the earliest of them to Green. CL IV 847–8. 4567 27.52 For the Symbols see App A. Oxygen as 48, 31…0, 40 of nitrogen: The entry discusses Brande Manual 362 § 725: Another mode of converting starch into sugar was discovered by M.Kirchoff; it consists in boiling it with very dilute sulphuric acid. A pound of starch may be digested in six or eight pints of distilled water, rendered slightly acid by two or three drachms of sulphuric acid. The mixture should be simmered for a few days, fresh portions of water being occasionally added to compensate for the loss by evaporation. After this process the acid is saturated by a proper proportion of chalk, and the mixture filtered and evaporated to the consistence of syrup; its taste is sweet, and, by purification in the usual way, it affords crystallized sugar. M.M.de la Rive and Saussure have shewn that the contact of air is unnecessary in the above process; that no part of the acid is decomposed, no gas evolved, and that the sugar obtained exceeds by about one-tenth, the original weight of the starch. M. de Saussure, therefore, concludes that the conversion of starch into sugar depends upon the solidification of water, a conclusion strengthened by the following comparative analysis. (Thomson’s Annals, Vol. II. [a slip for VI]) 100 parts of Starch contain
100 parts of Starch sugar contain
Carbon
45, 39
37,29
Oxygen
48,31
55, 87
Hydrogen
5,90
6,84
Nitrogen
0,40
0,00
100,00
100,00
This analysis of starch is somewhat at variance with that given by Gay Lussac; (709) indeed the small portion of nitrogen cannot be considered as an essential component.
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Acid…Oxide? Cf 4929. Coleridge was looking at organic substances for processes and powers and their modification—hence superinduction of an oxide(?), an easterly power (4555). f63 Solidification of Water inferred: In more conventional chemical language, the incorporation of the elements of water into the molecule of starch, forming (solid) sugar. [nitrogen]…a transmutation of Carbon into [oxygen] the disappearance of Neither can I agree…: The analyses given by Brande are inconsistent with one another if one assumes that hydrogen, nitrogen, etc are qualitatively conserved through a series of chemical reactions. Thus the disappearances of nitrogen (present in the analysis Brande offers for starch, absent in that for starch sugar) was significant for Coleridge since he interpreted it as a modification of power, appearing at the level of phenomena as a transmutation—not permitted by or-thodox chemical theory. Hence Brande’s dismissal of the discrepancy, and the importance attached to it by Coleridge. 4568 27.53 Brande Manual 363–4 §§ 727–8: Gluten is obtained from wheat-flour by forming it into a paste and washing it under a small stream of water. The starch is thus washed away, and a tough elastic substance remains, which is gluten…. When submitted to destructive distillation, it furnishes ammonia, a circumstance in which it resembles animal products. …It is contained in the sap of the houseleek, of the cabbage, and of most of the cruciform plants. Animality in vegetation: Nitrogen is present in significant amounts in many animal substances, but few vegetables have a large nitrogen content. Steffens (Beyträge passim) therefore considered nitrogen as the representative of animality in nature. Thus the production by distillation from vegetables of ammonia, which contains nitrogen, shows the presence in vegetables of animality. Cf TL 71–2. 4569 27.54 “Tannin, or the astringent principle, is contained in many vegetables”. Brande Manual 369, § 733. Above see 4544: Astringency=Attraction Conservative. Hence Tanning is a good illustration of N, tannin containing carbon, and Attraction being North ideally (4555). Rusting is due to oxidation, hence an example of Contraction, East (4555). 4570 27.55 The entry draws heavily on Brande Manual 360—88 §§ 723–65. ff63v–64 N.b. The blue compound…colouring matters: See also 4929 f29 where Coleridge’s remark that “Oxydation is to Light what Colour is to Flame…and contemplated as bodies, 1. Oxygen (+Chlorine+Iodine) 2. The Metals+Hydrogen 3. Oxyds Acids, Alkalies, and Neutral Salts” gives the key to his concern with the relation of colour to chemistry, which he pursued through his next paragraph here; his vocabulary should be read in the light of 4555; see also, variously on colour, 5399 and n. f64v The great importance of [oxygen] to [carbon] exemplified in Naphtha: Naphtha, according to Brande, is compounded of carbon and hydrogen—but the alliance of oxygen to centrality, involution of each in each, means that all four powers are present—so nitrogen, or repulsion, manifests itself oxygen and nitrogen must also be represented. in naphtha through the latter’s volatility. Hence nitrogen, although not identified in analysis as a Stoff, is important as a power.
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f65 “By distilling oxalate of lime…”: Brande Manual 387–8 § 765. Such considerations of physical properties allied to chemical classification are connected with Coleridge’s reading of Steffens Beyträge 1–8, also Grundzüge 58. 4571 27.56 For the symbols see App A. Gluten both in wheat and the juice of the Grape: “Vegetation+animalization/Body+Spirit, but Body itself is Matter+Spirit. The Bread & Wine unite=hyper spiritual Matter”. On Gluten see Brande Manual quoted in 4568n, above. On gluten in grape juice Brande says, 399 §§ 788–9: The principal substances held in solution in grape juice are, sugar, gum, gluten, and supertartrate of potassa. It easily ferments spontaneously at temperatures between 60° and 80°, and the phenomena it gives rise to closely resemble those of the work with yeast. After the operation, its specific gravity is much diminished, its flavour changed, and it has acquired intoxicating powers. …If a mixture of one part of sugar, four or five of water, and a little yeast, be placed in a due temperature, it also soon begins to ferment, and gives rise to the same products as wort, or grape juice. The Romanists…: I.e. the Roman doctrine of immediate transsubstantiation; for Coleridge’s view of the symbolic character of the Eucharist see 4831 ff58–9, 5126, 5161, and nn. 4572 27.57 All this information is in Brande Manual 394–5 § 780, but differently ordered; as in many other instances Coleridge read a section, selected what interested him, and condensed it in a sequence more logical to him than the original, possibly more from memory than from strict copying; this would perhaps account for his adding to the Quart of Ink 6 grains of corrosive sublimate where Brande recommended dissolving “in each pint of the ink about three grains”. 4573 27.58 To collate all the υeget[able] Acids: By using the figures given in Brande Manual 383–97 §§ 756–84, on Tartaric, Oxalic, Citric, Malic, Gallic, and Benzoic Acids; mentioned in a final paragraph are Moroxylic, Boletic, Zumic, and Kinic acids. The facts and quotations here are from these pages of Brande. But what throws a doubt: Coleridge had long known of Davy’s controversy with the French about acidity. He had come to believe that there was no principle of alkalinity or acidity; it depended rather “upon peculiar combinations of matter, and not on any elementary principle”. D Works v 456. Hence his Query Acids=proper combination 0f 3 Elements, &c. pure alcohol: Analysed in Brande Manual 412 § 796. f66 But if we substitute Olefiant Gas: Coleridge is making the astute point that if one associates chemical properties (e.g. acidity) with particular combinations of elements, then the selection of different combinations within the molecule is crucial—and different selections (assuming different preformed parts) must yield different results. Coleridge’s dynamic view, however, of chemical combination (synthesis or indifference) means that the product of a reaction is as much a unit as the reactants. Thus hydrogen+oxygen become→water, and hydrogen, oxygen and water are all truly individuals. So Water=1.
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commixture [distinguished from] intussusception: See CN III 4435 and n. Daltonian Theory: For a characteristic statement see a letter of 1817 to Lord Liverpool (CL IV 760). sic est or sic Deo placitum: “so it is or so it has pleased God”. f66v Olefiant Gas being chloric Ether. Brande 153 § 231 has taken Thomson’s statement that he gave the name chloric ether to “the compound formed by the union of chlorine and olefiant gas”, but has used it in such a way that he is open to misunderstanding through confusion of his pronouns. This, however, sufficiently favors my notion: Brande’s use of pronouns led Coleridge to think that he had represented olefiant gas and chloric ether as one and the same. This would indeed support a transmutation of oxygen into chlorine, something inadmissible for the atomists but entirely reasonable for Coleridge, who regarded both as symbols of proximate powers. Coleridge presumably interpreted the sequence in Brande Manual 416 § 805 as another transmutation of chlorine into oxygen, since he had Brande’s confusion between olefiant gas and chloric ether still in mind. f67 Hence The quid pro quo for I.e. v chlorine for oxygen. In 4555 f49 Coleridge used or for chlorine, presumably to distinguish between the Greek χ and the Roman×. Here and elsewhere he forgot this useful distinction and confused the symbols, but not the sense. Cf Brande Manual 416 §§ 805–6. When the vapour of ether is passed through a red-hot tube, it is decomposed, and furnishes large quantity of carburetted hydrogen gas. Its analysis has been performed in various ways. M.Saussure, by detonating ethereal vapour with oxygen, and ascertaining the quantity of carbonic acid formed, and that of oxygen consumed, is led to consider the component parts of ether, as Hydrogen
14,40
Carbon
67,98
Oxygen
17, 62
which proportions are equivalent to Olefiant gas Water
100 25
Or, it may be stated as consisting of 5
proportionals of olefiant gas, 6, 7×5
1
water
=33,5 =8,5 42,0
which numbers, reduced to ultimate components, give 6
proportionals of hydrogen 1×6
=6.
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5
carbon
5, 7×5=28,5
1
oxygen
=7, 5 42,0
806. By reverting to the composition of alcohol, the change effected upon it by the sulphuric acid in the process of etherification will be evident, as also the rationale of the production of olefiant gas (796). Alcohol consists of Olefiant gas Water
100 50
If we now subtract the whole of the water, which may be effected by a due proportion of sulphuric acid, we obtain olefiant gas only, but, if we only abstract half the water, we convert the alcohol into ether; not that either of these conversions are ever perfectly performed in any of our processes. Oleum: Again from Brande Manual 417 § 808. 4574 27.59 the latest and best compendia of chemistry. In addition to the Brande Manual being used continuously in this notebook, Coleridge used and annotated (see 4873) Thomas Thomson A System of Chemistry (3rd ed 5 vols Edinburgh 1807) and (though not the latest) Herman Boerhaave A New Method of Chemistry…tr P.Shaw and E.Chambers (1727). See also 4929 ff31–31v and n for additional references. my assertion, that the more initiative Ideas, the greater the impulse to experiment’. Controversy between the Ideas men and the experimenters was rife in the early days of modern chemistry, Coleridge’s position (and on occasion Davy’s) being a reconciliation of opposites, or rather a denial of real opposition; see e.g. The Friend (CC) I 481 on the relation between an idea and a central experiment, and I 494n on its “experimental Dynamic” instigated by John Hunter’s “Idea”. the action of Water as Water: I.e. rather than as hydrogen+oxygen. See 4573 f65v and n. muriatic Acid: Hydrochloric acid, i.e. hydrogen & chlorine, which, Coleridge suggests, acting as a unit, made difficult the identification of chlorine as an element. Lavoisier in 1789 classified what we call chlorine as a compound and as late as 1813 Davy’s view of chlorine as elementary was contested. See 4564 f57v and n. 4575 27.60 In pencil. Questions arising further from the treatment of Lampic Acid in Brande Manual 417–18 § 809: Mr. Daniell has described many of the combinations of this acid, which he terms lampates, and has given some experiments upon its composition, whence he deduces its ultimate components, as follow: 1
proportional carbon
5,7
Notes on the notebooks
1
hydrogen
1
water
49
1 8,5 15, 2
When lampic acid is added to the solutions of silver, gold, platinum, mercury, and copper, and the mixture heated, the metals are thrown down in the metallic state. On distilling the lampate of mercury, made by digesting the peroxide of mercury in the acid, Mr. Daniell obtained the concentrated or pure lampic acid, in the form of a very dense liquid, with an intensely suffocating odour. f68v in many cases I should dwell on the volume, or comparative space occupied under equal pressure and temperature: It is interesting that Avogadro’s hypothesis states that the number of molecules in a given volume of any gas is the same at equal temperature and pressure, but C is discussing reactions between solid and fluid. Brande gives proportions by weight. C feels that volume may be more relevant (volume being deducible from weight if specific gravity is known). Benjamin Collins Brodie in the 1860’s was to develop a chemical calculus involving operations on units of volume, partly in order to avoid any reliance on an atomic theory. So in water the 15 grains of Hydrogen must fully counter-energize 85 of [oxygen] tho’ not counterpoise. Brande gives water H:O as 1:7½. Dalton assumed that atoms were characterized by their weight, and combined in constant ratios of small whole numbers. Coleridge’s opposition to Dalton’s atomism would dispose him to reject a theory founded on weight only. specific gravity seems [opposite] to energy: Specific gravity had for Coleridge the usual meaning; i.e. cf “The degree of relative heaviness characteristic of any kind or portion of matter; commonly expressed by the weight of a given volume of some substance taken as standard…. Since the weights of bodies are proportional to their masses, their specific gravities are in the same ration as their densities”. OED. 4576 27.61 In pencil. dest. dist: destructive distillation. This fact is reported in Brande Manual 426 § 823 on Acetates. 4577 27.62 The source for this entry was Brande Manual 431–39 §§ 833–39. Albumen, which in actu is fibrine: Brande § 834: “the serum of the blood …at a temperature of 160°,…becomes a form of yellowish white coagulum, resembling in appearance and properties the coagulated white of egg, and, as the principle to which this property is owing is the same in both substances, it has been called albumen” Ibid § 837: “When the coagulum of the blood is carefully washed under a small stream of water, the colouring matter is gradually dissolved, and washed out of it, and a white fibrous substance remains, which has been termed fibrina or coagulable lymph, but of which the chemical properties are there of albumen.” firmamental principle of the animal…vegetable: I.e. the solid principle, containing nitrogen, the chemical representative of animality, while carbon (here with oxygen) is the representative of vegetation. See 4568n.
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crassamentum: Brande § 833: “When blood is drawn from its vessels in the living animal, it soon concretes into a jelly-like mass, which afterwards gradually separates into a fluid serum, of a pale straw colour, & a coagulated crassamentum, or cruor, which is red”. Brande’s experiments (Phil Trans 1812) led him “to regard the colouring matter of the blood as a distinct proximate principle of animal matter, perfectly independent of the presence of iron”. Berzelius, he admits, obtained different results having identified iron in the colouring matter. “The iron appears to be regarded by Berzelius, as contributing to the red colour of the blood”. Ibid § 838. the philosopher sees the truth…oxide of Iron &c: Coleridge, who identified metals with the N-S axis of power in the Compass of Nature, and thus with chemical carbonnitrogen, regarded the presence of carbon and nitrogen and iron in the colouring matter of the blood as no coincidence, but rather nascent metallization. Cf 4555 f50n, CN III 4420 and n, and their relation to his reading of Steffens, and especially 5290 on colour and the metallon. See also 4825 f150 (11 July 1821), in which Coleridge discussed Gillman’s view of the absorbents: “Color is first induced when the fluids are contained—in other words, proper vascularity is a previous condition of color—and accordingly in the Venous Blood the Carbon, as Carbon, first manifests its existence.” The magnetic action…boiling milk: Brande § 842: “The curd of milk has the leading properties of coagulate albumen, and like that principle is coagulable by alcohol and acids, and is also similarly affected by Voltaic eiectricity; heat slowly produces the same effect, and by boiling milk, the albumen separates in successive films.” But did not Coleridge mean “electric action” rather than magnetic? E.g. in 4659 he discussed heat in the W-E, electric, axis of powers. Bile/in the liver from venous blood: § 847. For the correlation of animal chemistry, physiology, and powers, see 4544 and n. There the liver is in the abdominal system, corresponding to reproduction, which is itself represented by magnetism, the N-S axis of power in the Compass of Nature. And/ carbon-nitrogen, are the corresponding chemical symbols. auseinandering: “distinguishing from one another”, as in 5086 and n. 4578 27.63 For the symbols see 4577 and 4555 or App A. Coleridge was here considering a dynamic balance of powers and concluded that solution was an intermediate term between a mechanism and a chemical compound. 4579 27.64 Brande: Manual 439–40 § 847: “Thenard separated from bile a peculiar substance, which he had termed picromel; but the process by which he obtained it, is so complex, that I think it doubtful whether it be a product or an educt.” In using these terms Brande followed a statement of Steffens in Beyträge 38–40, which perhaps Coleridge remembered. Steffens made a distinction between pre-existing chemical entities believed not to be products but educts of plants. Picromel: A bitter-sweet substance, described here by Brande. ipso processu analytico artefactum: “manufactured by the very process of analysis”. Dynamists, much more the Zöodynamists: Dynamists seek to explain all phenomena as an expression of some immanent energy, in opposition to atomists. Zoodynamists, though also adhering to this principle, see life arising from chemical processes, e.g. Steffens Grundzüge 61 (tr): “Every chemical process forms a specific individual life (a
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momentary identity of Gravity and Light)”. Coleridge differed in hypothesizing an hiatus between chemistry and life. Cf educt vs product in SM: LS (CC) 29 and n, with Coleridge’s cor-rection of his own application of educt to the imagination, and his alteration to “Produce”. 4580 27.65 Using his own symbolic terms (4555), Coleridge was following closely Brande Manual 441–60 §§ 849–94, which deal with the chemistry of lymph and mucus, urine, calculi, skin, muscle, fat, cerebral substance, shell and bone. πς of Serpents: “piss” of Serpents. cholera Morbus of India: Coleridge had perhaps read an article on the subject by William Stuart Anderson in the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal XV (1819) 354–7 2. urina ebria: “the urine of intoxication”. f71 ζωη προυργανικος must ipsis terminis…ζ. οργανιχη: “pre-organic life must by the very meaning of the words” be a simpler, less modified “life”—of course nearer to “the cosmic” or “organic life” of the planet. cutis υera, rete mucosum: “the true skin, the mucous membrane”. Brande wrote (§ 871), “The skin of animals consists of an exterior albuminous covering, or cuticle, under which is a thin stratum of a peculiar substance, called by anatomists, rete mucosum, and which lies immediately upon the cutis, or true skin, of which the principal component is gelatine”. Thenard’s Osmazome (Have I not somewhere a memorandum on this substance): As in 4634. See Sir E. Home’s Paper: In § 886 Brande referred to Home’s discussion of Ambergris, “seen in the fatty matter…only found in the unhealthy…spermacetti whale”, citing Home’s Lectures on Comparative Anatomy I 470. (See 4646 f3vn). f71v Shell and Bone: Hatchett admirable: Brande’s § 888 referred to two papers by Hatchett in Phil Trans 1799, 1800. On Hatchett’s superiority to Davy see The Friend (CC) I 471. maxima: evoke M[inima?] Higher up: I.e. in the scale of life. From this point onwards, Coleridge was observing the increase in the proportion of animal matter (containing nitrogen, phosphorus) over vegetable matter in shell and bone, with the ascent in the scale of life. Hatchett’s analyses provided the evidence. See also 4645 f2v. I.e. to f99. This probably means that most of the pages—ff72–98v—if not all, were filled, i.e. some or all of entries 27.70 to 27.90 may have been already in the notebook. Yet the notebook was originally paged in full by Coleridge himself from f2 (p I) to f99 (p 199). But at 27.70 4517 the book was turned around and a new page numbering was begun 1–4 (f98v being new p I, f97 new p 4). Though the renumbering stopped, the continuing use of the notebook was in the same direction, hence the foliation runs backwards in entries 27.70–90 (4517–4539). See CN III N 27 Gen N. f99v (σπασµα Spannung of −ζ: “spasm, tension, of minus life” i.e. disanimation, in barely alive teeth. In this entry Coleridge was correlating life and individuation with chemical substances. For his elaboration of this scheme see TL 71–8. 4581 27.67 Parturition Divæ Mortis: “Childbearing by Goddess Death”.
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St Chrysostom’s gloss on the text “having loosed the pangs of Death”: The text is Acts 2:24. Coleridge probably had this, not directly from Chrysostom’s Homiliæ in Acta Apostolorum, VI. I. but from John Hacket A Century of Sermons 553, “The First Sermon upon the RESURRECTION” discussing this text: “First St. Chrysostomes judgment upon it is, that when Christ came out of the Grave death itself was delivered from pain and anxiety…death knew it held him captive, whom it ought not to have seized upon, and therefore it suffered torments like a woman in travel, till it had given him up again.” Diva Mors is Coleridge’s phrase and appears in neither Hacket nor Chrysostom in this context, although the clear implication of such personification is present in both. In Coleridge’s annotated copy of Hacket in the BM there is a marginal note on the passage: “Most noticeable! See the influence of the surrounding myriotheism in the dea Mors!” See 4625 and n below. 4582 28.1 In pencil. Broxbourne and Waltham Cross are about sixteen miles from London in S.E. Herts, not far from Enfield. But local directories have provided no name to flesh out the W.P.Esq. 4583 28.2 On the inside front cover. The definition of the÷ sign was written in a different ink after the footnote to 4584 was on the page. chemically combined with=×: This line is in pencil, the deletion and the×in ink.×,the usual symbol for multiplication, is here used for a dynamic process yielding a product, i.e. for chemical combination; cf, e.g., 4799 and 5239. The entry is a description of the series of the earths in relation to the predominant power in each, so that
(silica) is shown as the earth in which the power of/(carbon)
predominates, while in lime) (nitrogen) predominates: see 4555f49 and n. Alumina and Magnesia are the earths corresponding to East and West in the Compass of Nature. They are both constituted, in polar fashion, around centrality, but with —that is, towards predominating powers in opposite directions from centrality the westerly and easterly powers. The earths are basic to a descriptive chemical classification of geological materials, in which silica and lime are particularly important for Werner and Steffens. Steffens’s geology is genetic, and Coleridge’s concluding sentence makes it clear that he is discussing the genetic relation of powers and earths; see also 4555 f49, 4653 and nn. 4584 28.3 The red pocket-book is N 27; it is no longer red, but brown except in the fold of the pencil holder; see CN III N 27 Gen N. “chemico-philosophical”. ταραξια κ’αταξiα: “confusion and disorder”. the last 28 sides: I.e. ff78–92; see entries 4585–4587. These entries therefore are datable post 16 July 1819; before that date this notebook had been used intermittently, with some pages, ff66v–67, 73v–75 at least, left blank (later filled with entries 4810, 5146, 5147, 5186, CN V 28.83); the location of this entry does not necessarily mean that all pages up to the last 28 sides were already filled. 4585 28.86 Another attempt (see 4584 and N27 Gen N) to put order of a sort in a notebook by separating the Miscellanea, and therefore, possibly a fairly early entry in this
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notebook. It may originally have had a specific limited purpose related to N 27. See N 28 Gen Note. vel cogitationum…: “whether of thoughts, leisure, or affairs”. 4586 28.100 This entry was on the page before 4587 was written there. The historical Somerled was Lord of the Isles, a famous chief of the Hebrides who invaded Scotland, leading an army against the young Malcolm IV. He was defeated and slain in 1159. So Pennant (see 4783n) I 172, 236 and Chalmers (4780) I 625–8 record. Possibly he was nicknamed Thor, but where, or where mentioned in a link with a Haroldson, has not been discovered. —Haroldson is elusive. 4587 28.99 The first sentence comes from an article by T.Edward Bowdich, “Account of the Climate, Natural Products, Arts, and Manufactures of the Kingdom of Ashantee and some of the Territories adjacent”: Phil Mag (July 1819) LIV 26–31. The name of the fruit and the information about De Marchais’s appear in a footnote. Coleridge was extracting a minute point out of a traveller’s general account of this part of Africa. f91 Dr Joseph Reade…: From another article from the same number of Phil Mag 48– 58. The “Hibernian perplexity” of style is as Coleridge described it. Two of the briefest sentences are: “In this experiment the changes of the corneal image were accompanied by simultaneous changes in the mind; therefore that, and that alone, must have produced the sensation…There is no inverted image ever painted on the retina”. Tilloch’s P.M.: Alexander Tilloch was the editor of Phil Mag. f91v Fox, of Falmouth…Ibid 72, “Alloys of Platinum”; Coleridge here used his own chemical symbols or “chlorine for Tin and Platinum i.e. combined with the metals…Tin combined with Platinum”. See App A and 4555. The French Chronometer: Ibid LIV 73–4, an article so entitled, describing a fifteenday automatic chronometer. Allizeau (of Paris): Ibid 74, under the heading “Geometrical Recreation”, he described invention of a new kind of toy, consisting of pieces of wood, to teach geometrical problems and “the first principles of architecture. Price 14 francs (11s 8d).” Coleridge thought of buying one for James Gillman, the elder of the Gillman sons (1808–77) later Vicar of Holy Trinity, Lambeth, and President of the Prudential Life Insurance Co. Cf his remarks on “wooden diagrams” in LS (CC) 173. The next paragraph appears ibid 73, under “Velocity of Sound”, and above it, the following paragraph on “Blasting Rocks”: Colonel Warnaghen, of the Braxils, has made an important discovery; he has ascertained that the sawdust of wood, especially of woods of the less harder sort, triples the force of the powder employed in blowing up rocks when mixed with it in equal parts. The Dust… ~: Coleridge’s symbols in his scheme mean “contrary to dilation”. f92 Thenartd’s new Liquid: Ibid 70–1; Coleridge turned back for a paragraph on “Oxygenated Water”: “It acts powerfully on oxide of silver: each drop let fall on it dry, causes an explosion, with an evolution of light if in a dark place”. 1.453: Specific gravity, Coleridge’s symbol; see App A. Monge’s Pyroligneous Acid: Ibid 69–70, “Pyroligneous Acid”, a paragraph claiming the discovery of a miraculous food preservative. On p 58 “Observations on the Means of
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Preserving Provisions and Goods. By Joseph MacSweeney, M.D.” suggests another process. sine die: “indefinitely”. 4588 28.101 The proper unmodified Dochmius: I.e. the five-syllable foot, basically of the form -----, as Coleridge exemplified it. It was capable of at least nineteen modifications as used in Greek drama. antipastus hypercatalecticus: I.e. an antipast (described among the metres in CN II 2224 f95, and CN III 4214, an iambus and a trochee) plus an extra syllable. 4589 28.37 The heading is Coleridge’s: “Composed by divine power; I have seen [him] non-composed by the power of wine.” The sonnet is Charles Lamb’s and is in his holograph. Entitled At Cambridge it was first published in The Examiner for Sunday 29 and Monday 30 Aug 1819, and first collected in Lamb’s Album Verses (1830) 34. There are minor differences in punctuation here from the Examiner and also from Album Verses. Lamb possibly called on Coleridge and wrote this in the notebook on his return from Cambridge in mid-Aug 1819; in Oxford quadrangles he “walked gowned”, Hazlitt said. As early as Sept 1820 Hazlitt silently borrowed Lamb’s own phrase for himself. Table Talk No III “On the Conversation of Authors”: London Magazine (il 261) H Works XII 42. 4590 24.8 In AP 293. This entry is a postscript to an earlier one, CN II 3014, and is quoted there in the note. 2 Sept. 1819. Ramsgate’. The first of several autumnal visits to Ramsgate; see CL IV 946–7. the above poem: Canzone XVIII of Dante’s Rime which he had transcribed on ƒƒ4−6 of this notebook; see CN II 3014n. universal significance…in addition to the specific meaning: Cf “Poetry is essentially ideal”: Chap XVII BL (CC) II 45; and “the ideal consists in the happy balance of the generic with the individual. The former makes the character representative and symbolical, therefore instructive; because, mutatis mutandis, it is applicable to whole classes of men. The latter gives it living interest; for nothing lives or is real, but as definite and individual.” Chap XXIII BL (CC) II 214–15. Mr Wade of Bristol: Josiah Wade; in addition to CN II 3014n, see CN III 4018n, 4193 and n, 4210n, 4218n. 4591 24.69 theletic: Not in OED; Jeremy Bentham’s Ontology (1813–21) is cited for thelematic, “pertaining to the will; voluntary”; see below, Thelematoid. Producents: “Rare”, OED citing Coleridge for an adjectival use in AR (1861 ed of DC p 138); the word is not, however, in any edition published in Coleridge’s lifetime. OED cites also a substantive use in LR IV 52, a marginal note on Luther. f35v tota et omnis et nullo modo pars in non toto: “complete and whole and in no way a part in what is not a whole”. On the human Will as necessarily part of a larger energy or dynamic; see e.g. 5243. 4592 24.3 Lackington’s Cat: Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, and Jones’s General Catalogue of Books, in the Ancient and Modern Languages, and Various Classes of Literature For the Year 1819 lists as No 20571 the Bruining volume, “sewed, 2s. 6d. Groningæ. 1815.” There is no copy of this work on Mesmerism before Mesmer in the BM nor does the title appear in the Mesmer bibliography attached to the life of Mesmer
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by M.L.Goldsmith (1934). Did Coleridge search for it or notice it because he had seen a review of it in Archiv für den thierischen Magnetismus I (1817) 180–8? For Coleridge’s references to this publication see 4512 above, and 4809 below. 4593 29.13 The entry is compressed into a vertical space left beside 29.11 (CN III 4207), and it avoids 29.12 (CN III 4209) already on the page. On 28 September 1819 Coleridge was back in highgate inquiring of his friends George Caldwell and Francis Wrangham to ask their advice and help for Derwent, “at what College should I enter him, with the best chance of exhibition or scholarship at present”. Someone advised St John’s [Cambridge] but “next to Jesus my own wishes point to Trinity”. CL IV 951. Coleridge had for some time been thinking of Cambridge for Derwent, and in July 1817 J.H.Frere had offered his influence (CL III 755); but the details became more specific in 1819. See also HC Letters (1936) 21,30 where Derwent is described as “indifferent as to Oxford or Cambridge” and it appears that before Jan 1820 Coleridge had been making “arrangements” for him. From the autumn of 1817 to Dec 1819 Derwent was tutor to the Hopwoods family. In May 1820 he was entered at St John’s, Cambridge. See also 4937n. 4594 21½.72 These notes on Luther’s Table Talk may be dated roughly 1819, from entries nearby (4606, 4609) and from the fact that Coleridge borrowed the Colloquia Mensalia from Lamb in 1819. The treatment of Luther in the philosophical lectures does not suggest a reading before that time. The Devil (saith Luther)…: “Of the Divel’s Work” in Chap XXXV Colloquia Mensalia tr Henrie Bell (1652) 383. Coleridge in this entry used Lamb’s copy of this edition. He annotated this and it is now in the BM. In those notes he increased the noisiness of the Devil by adding strange knockings and noises, clattering, of old times and old houses, and grumbling and chattering. St Austin writeth…: Colloquia (1652) 385 “Of the punishment of the Ungodlie”. Coleridge here transcribed the whole section. Schelling’s Correspondent. MAGN[etiser].: In the Jahrbücher der Medicin als Wissenschaft ed A.F.Marcus and F.W.J.Schelling (see CN in 3764n) K.E.Schelling described correspondence with a magnetiser, Johann A.Schmidt of Vienna, a physician who provided him with reports of specific instances of “so-called visions” (II i 30–46). The hint of Undina: Luther Colloquia 386 tells “How the Divel can deceiv people, and beget Children”, the story of a ghost-wife who returned and bore children to her noble lord but disappeared as suddenly as she came. The page reference establishes Coleridge’s use in these entries of the 1652 edition. Luther (387) refers also to the “Nix in the water…who begetteth Divels Children”. Undina: Undine, the romance by F.H.K.de la Motte Fouqué, Coleridge read in German and in an English translation. George Soane’s translation (1818) reprinted in Philadelphia (1824) was given to Coleridge’s daughter, Sara, and may have been the one used by Coleridge also (BM C.132 c.9). He praised the original very highly but thought the translation inferior; see TT 31 May 1830 and n, also CL V III where in a letter of 20 Oct 1820 to Edward Copleston he referred to Luther’s account of the fable. Cogitations of the Understanding: “How wee ought to carrie our selvs in time of Tribulation” Colloquia 388. Coleridge, pleased to find that Luther, like himself, was acutely aware of depressing conflict in motivation, wrote a marginal note on this passage; in CM under Luther.
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f36v Cerberus: “The Hellish-hound…in Greek is called Cerberus, in Hebrew, Scorphur” Colloquia 389. “The Magistrate…”: Colloquia 390 Chap XXXVI cf Witchcraft § 2, also an annotated passage. the natural good sense of Luther. The paragraph is largely based on Luther Colloquia 381, “That the Devil may be driven away by ridiculous contemning and jeering”. Coleridge supplied shouting Texts at him and pelting him for Luther’s “uttering”, but substituted for Luther’s “when hee [the Devil] intended to Burthen my Conscience”, υexing my faith…Conscience. The most interesting variant from Luther at this point is Coleridge’s Devil saying I have recorded thy sins in my register for Luther’s statement to the Devil “I have Recorded my sins in thy Register”; what follows down to Sancte Satan appears to be Coleridge’s addition in a Lutheran mode. f37v Shavelings: Tonsured ecclesiastics. Sancte Satan! ora pro me: Colloquia 394: “Holy Satan! Pray for me!” Quia est…contemptum sui: Colloquia 381: “Because he is a proud Spirit, and cannot bear contempt of himself.” But better it were…hid: Colloquia 389: “How wee ought to carrie our selvs in time of Tribulation”. Coleridge’s marginal notes here show a deep personal agreement with Luther on this passage, which he marked “Sublime!” and on the value of the Psalms as a form of prayer. “N.B.Expertus credo—S.T.C. 19 Aug. 1826. I have learnt to interpret for myself the imprecatory verses of the Psalmist of my inward & spiritual enemies, the old Adam, and all his corrupt menials—& thus I am no longer as I used to be, stopped or scandalized by such passages, as vindictive and anti-christian.” f38 “We should have no dealing…bitterness”: Chap XXXVIII “Cf Luther’s Adversaries that wrote against him”: Colloquia 410. Applied to Jeffrey & Hazlitt: See CN III 4323 and n, and CL IV 668–70 and nn; also CL V 475 for a later reference to their hostility. Nullus et Nemo…sacco: Luther Chap XLIV “Of Sectaries and Seducers” Colloquia 432 used the phrase in attacking Erasmus: “No one and Nobody bite each other in a sack”. On 16 August 1819 “the battle of Peterloo” had taken place—the use of troops as well as constabulary to quell a reformist demonstration in St Peter’s Fields, Manchester. Orator Henry Hunt was arrested and imprisoned for over two years, and though John Watson does not seem to have been personally prominent, this would recall the earlier demonstration in 1816 at Spa Fields when the platform rivalry between Hunt and Watson became a public joke. Yet, owing to brainier men like Cobbett, the often misplaced energies of Hunt and Watson did not seriously block the movement for political reform. See also 4700. Swill and Quaff: Coleridge’s adaptation of Luther’s “Grickle” and “Jeckle” Colloquia 291–2. Chap XL “Of the Papist’s Fasting”, closes with, “these poor fasting Brethren, they grew so pale and wan, that they were like to fierie Angels”, and Chap LXXIX “Of Drunkenness” quotes Tacitus on how the Germans would shamelessly “drink and swill” for a day at a time. Colloquia 527. A Friar…: “on the latrine reading the Canon of the Hours—to whom the Devil saying, A ‘Monk ought not to read the Prime on the latrine’, the Friar answered
‘I purge my belly And worship almighty God: To you what is
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below To almighty God what is above.’ ” 4595 21½.73 Sydenham’s Principia: Thomas Sydenham’s Opera universa (Leyden 1726), Gillman’s copy, was in the Gillman SC (388); see also 5201 and n. Thomas Sydenham (1624–89), perhaps the first really famous English physician, noted for his unorthodox cures, often infuriating to patients and professional colleagues, was strikingly modern in many of his observations and general principles. He contributed especially to the diagnosis and treatment of smallpox, hysteria, and gout, tried to classify diseases according to type, and was interested in multiple factors in illness. Coleridge undoubtedly saw him as a typical creative imagination in contrast to the rigid literalists of his own and many other professions. 4596 21½. 74 Answerers of Burke: Such as Thomas Paine Rights of Man; Being an answer to Mr Burke’s Attack on the French Revolution (1791), and James Mackintosh in Vindiciae Gallicae: Defence of the French Revolution and its English Admirers, against the Accusations of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke; both works made frequent criticism of the violence of Burke’s language. Juno’s who conceive Mars at the very smell of a Flower. Ovid in Fasti 5. 235–59 foll tells how Mars was born to Juno without the assistance of her husband Jupiter, because Juno persuaded Flora, Queen of Flowers, to touch her bosom with a magic flower so that she conceived Mars, a retaliation against Jupiter for having his daughter Minerva without her aid. 4597 21½.75 AP 228–9 var. The entry expands the theme recurrent in Coleridge’s prose of truth cloathed…for the Vulgar; cf e.g. Lects 1795 (CC) 353–5; The Friend (CC) I 209–10; LS (CC) 148n. 4598 21¼.76 Printed in “Omniana 1809–16”: LR I 341. Probably a less impersonal judgement than might appear; cf a Vol v entry (9 Sept 1830) in N 46 f21, quoted in Coburn SC Imagination 13. 4599 21½.77 Of Antony, the Monk, and his Compeers: Luther (see above 4594 and n) described “Macarius Antonius and Benedictus …with their munckerie” in Chap XXIX “Of the Books of the Fathers of the Church” Colloquia (1652) 351, a passage Coleridge annotated; it is Satan that “falleth from the matter and goeth the wrong waie to the wood” 352. f39v The fable of the two goats comes from Chap LIII “Of Discord” 469 var. For the last sentence of this paragraph Luther has “Even so people should rather endure to bee trod with feet, then to fall at debate and discord one with another.” Luther’s Excuse of Cursing: Based again on Colloquia 469, but more epigrammatic than Luther’s paragraph. The reference to Lessing could be to the broad moral of Nathan der Weise though this epigram has not been found there. Cf the same point made without reference to Luther or Lessing in Chap VII BL (CC): “man may perchance determine what is a heresy; but God only can know who is a heretic”. I 122. Luther himself taught at last the true christian doctrine of the Sacrament: Chap LXXX, with the running head, “Luther’s last discourses” Colloquia 529. “In the Articles concerning the Trinitie, the Incarnation of the Son of God, the Sacraments, wee must not look according to humane reason: for the judgment of God and man are divers things: but wee must think of his Word, which doth declare his Power and goodness; wee ought to
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commit the same unto God, hee will direct it well. Christus est spiritualiter in Sacramentis. Christ is spiritually in the Sacraments. But how, and after what manner, Hoc non est nostrûm perscutari, wee ought not search.” Rem credimus: modum nescimus: “We know the fact; we do not know the manner.” Untraced. In an annotation on Donne, on LXXX Sermons (1640) 34 E Coleridge said “I have ever felt, and for many years thought that this…is but a poor evasion”. Quote the passage respecting Copernicus, collate with Sir T. Brown’s: In Colloquia Chap LXX 503: “I am now advertised that a new Astrologer is risen, who presumeth to prove that the earth moveth and goeth about, non the Firmament the Sun, Moon, or the Stars, like as when one sitteth in a Coach or in a Ship and is moved, thinketh hee sitteth still and resteth, but the earth and trees go, run and move themselvs…. This foole will turn the whole Art of Astronomie upside-down, but the Scripture sheweth and teacheth him another Lesson, where Joshua commanded the Sun to stand still, and not the earth.” In his copy Coleridge wrote opposite this passage: “A similar but still more intolerant and contemptuous anathema of the Copernican System in Sir T.Brown, almost two centuries later than Luther”. In Pseudodoxia Epidemica Bk VII Chap XVIII, in the edition Coleridge used earlier (CN III 4366 and n), Browne refers to the anecdote of “Aeschilus, whose balde pate was mistaken for a rock, and so was brained by a Tortoise which an Eagle let fall upon it. Certainly it was a very great mistake in the perspicacity of that Animall, and some men critically disposed would from hence confute the opinion of Copernicus; never conceiving how the motion of the earth below, should not wave him from a knock perpendicularly directed from a body in the ayre above”. The printed marginal gloss on this reads: “An argument or instance against the motion of the earth”. Coleridge evidently did not collate these passages, if these are the ones to which he refers. Earlier (in Bk VI Chap V) Browne is less negative about “the hypothesis of Copernicus, affirming the Earth to move, and the Sun to stand still…”; he is at least noncommittal. Pseudodoxia (1659) 250–1. 4600 21½.78 Again from Luther’s Colloquia Chap XIII 223 var; Coleridge writes penalty for the “pain and punishment” of his edition. 4601 21½.79 Tommy, Jacky…: An entry possibly prompted by Luther’s Colloquia where Luther refers (169) to Adam as “the Divel’s instrument, yea, his Jakes”. 4602 21½.80 Cantilena: In Latin, an often-repeated song or refrain. sanies: Thin putrous serum and blood. supernatant: See CN III 3569 and n. On the main issue here one recalls disagreements with WW, e.g., Coleridge’s avowed “scepticism concerning the desirable influences of low and rustic life in and for itself’, and that where the necessary prerequisites to it are wanting, “the mind contracts and hardens by want of stimulants, and the man becomes selfish, sensual, gross, and hardhearted”. Chap XVII BL (CC) II 45. 4603 21½.81 On Eichhorn see CN III 4307n. Although Coleridge had already annotated much of Eichhorn by 28 Mar 1819 (see the letter to DC CL IV 929) he returned to these books as reference works throughout the 1820’s for many problems of biblical origins, composition, and authenticity. serviceable Note ending p. 600: The note is written in Eichhorn NT (Coleridge’s own copy designated in CM Copy A) I 597–600, “Glaubwürdigkeit des Lukas”. Brushing
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aside the patristic theory that Luke’s gospel may be validated by Paul’s reference to it in Rom 2:16, Eichhorn argued that its validity must be judged on the basis of Luke’s sources and Luke’s discrimination among them. Coleridge’s note reads: Even Eichhorn, the best of the historical Critics among Theologians, presumes too much on the truth of the notion, that the biography of Jesus formed the whole or principal part of the Apostolical Preaching—too little on the share which the divine Philosophy, the revealed Religion itself had—the everlasting Gospel that was from the Beginning, the Christ that was even in the Wilderness. St Paul scarce ever refers to historical facts but in confirmation or exemplification of some doctrine, as in his account of the Lord’s Supper and the Resurrection—no where, I think, to any particular miracle. They who had received this doctrine, did not need them—they believed them a fortiori. Those who refused the doctrines would either deny the facts or account for them according to the general fancies of their age. ex. gr. of magic or of connate δυναµείς [powers] as those of our Greatrakes or Greatorix and others. res ipsissimëity: “the thing-itself-ness”. f40v Aristean Fable of the 70 Translators: Eichhorn AT I 313–14, summarized as “Fabel” the Letter of Aristeas (c 200 B.C.–A.D. 30), which told the story of the (unmiraculous) translation of the Pentateuch by 72 translators summoned to Alexandria by Ptolemy Philadelphus. Eichhorn goes on to give a later version of the story, from Justin Martyr, in which the translators, although locked up in separate cells, produced 72 identical Greek versions of the OT.Later the number became 70. Hence the title Septuagint for the Greek OT. Cf 4869 and n. convey their opinion, in a circle: I.e. because the Scriptures were infallible, the statements therein that they were inspired (e.g. 2 Tim 3:16) were inspired; see 4615, 5371 f5v and nn. f41 defects charged by Worldlings…: E.g. Thomas Paine in The Age of Reason. In a marginal note on Eichhorn NT I 634 Coleridge objected to similar views; cf also 4706 and n. Gnomαι: “Proverbs”. gnomonic Poems of the Greeks & Romans: E.g. of Theognis, Varro and Horace. 4604 21½.82 The first sentence, f4I, may have been the last written. If so, he went back to a small space on the leaf preceding the entry proper, beginning on f41v. This looks like the most reasonable interpretation of the MS. f41v The Egyptian Naturalists . . . believed: An illustration frequently used by Coleridge; see e.g. CN III 4418 f11. rudis indigestaque moles: Ovid Metamorphoses 1.7: “a rough unordered mass of things”. Tr F.J.Miller (LCL 2 vols 1916) I 3. υis plastica: “plastic force”; see The Friend (CC) I 493 fn. See also plastic life (5150), plastic appetence (5235), plastic Instinct (5177), plastic Moulds (4746). Fiat: See CN III 4418 ff14v–15. Lucific plusquam-Sampsonian’. “more than Samsonian” (Coleridge regularly writes Sampson).
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Death, which is but the Life of a lower order of Natural Power: Cf CN III 4434 and n. f42 the co- if not the pre-existence of the Heart: Cf 5171 and n on evidence for a heart, however rudimentary, even in lower forms of life. in reos…insolentes: “against those guilty of high treason against her, rebels, poisoners, heretics, the insolent”. Carnifices: “Executioners”. f42v υita non υita…alieno: “a life that is no life, given by another’s will”. On galvanism see 4639 and n. the Tadpole in its Metamorphosis: QJSLA XIX (July 1825) reviewed a recent work by Sir Everard Home Observations on the Changes the Ovum of the Frog undergoes during the Formation of the Tadpole. The reviewer described (295) how, according to Home, the brain and spinal marrow in cold-blooded as well as hot-blooded animals, are first discerned, then the heart and other viscera. Coleridge may have enjoyed noticing this description as supporting vitalist theories. Hartleyan &c Doctrine of Self-love: E.g. cf Observations on Man (Pt II) Chap Iv Sect III: “However all these things mortify pride, and the refined self-interest; lead, or even compel, men to resign all to God; and so advance them to a more pure, disinterested, and permanent love of God”. (1791) I 470. See also CN III 3907 and n. Written in pencil vertically up the outer margin. Priestleyan Education from Selfishness to Virtue: In his Miscellaneous Observations relating to Education § XI “Of Instruction in the Principles of Morals and Religion” Priestley says: “A child has no love or affection for any person whatever, till he has felt their importance to himself… and by degrees…he loves others without any regard to himself”. (1788) 103. With this theory of developing Self-love, cf Coleridge’s comments on the Moravian doctrine of the instantaneity of the New Birth in 5240 f28. 4605 21½.83 In AP 276–9 this entry is presented var as two, but Coleridge’s “n.b. begin [underlined] at “Save only—” suggests that the first paragraph preceding this instruction was to be inserted later (it is not deleted), possibly at the end of the entry. The paragraph standing first in 4604, which was possibly a later insertion, may have been intended to link the two discussions together. The revisions, emphases, and dialogue style convey an impression that Coleridge was here preparing for dictation, or more systematic writing, or possibly for discussion with his Thursday evening class. Spirits that peep, and mutter. Isaiah 8:19. f43 moe: mow (var). OED. Plans of teaching the Deaf & Dumb have been invented: In 1819 John P.Arrowsmith’s The Art of Instructing the Infant Deaf and Dumb indicated public interest at that time in institutions for the Deaf and Dumb. Thomas Braidwood’s resignation from the Birmingham Deaf and Dumb Institution, announced in the Gentleman’s Magazine for Nov 1819 (Vol LXXXIX 452–3), included an offer to train a successor in the educational methods introduced by his father, who had a famous school for the deaf and dumb in Edinburgh. On 25 May 1819 the Courier carried a dramatic account of a large London meeting, under royal patronage, on the occasion of the anniversary of the Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb founded in 1792.
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There was some controversy at the time as to whether deaf mutes should be educated separately or with other children. Coleridge may have seen accounts of early methods of which it was said that the children’s concepts, being confined to visible objects and sensations, were few, and that abstract or figurative language was impossible to them. Hence Coleridge’s jest at the expense of superstitionists. Homines sumus…alienum: The well-known tag, adapted from Terence (Heautontimorumenos I 25): “We are human beings, and nothing human is indifferent/alien to us.” Cf CN II 2123 and n. f43v Pietists…Mystics: Boehme? George Fox? Oι, Oι, παπαι & c: Exclamations of grief, pain, etc, as Coleridge implies, especially frequent in Greek tragedy. as in a night mair…you are forced to believe: Coleridge writes with authority; see e.g. CN I 1619, 1649; CN II 2468 and n; CN III 3322 and particularly III 4046 and nn. During the years of ill health…I saw a host of Apparitions: The past tense is support for a date c Oct 1819 for this and the succeeding entries. On his apparitions, seen and heard, see TT May 1823. You according to your own: [account?]. f44 Superstitionist: Coleridge below plays on the roots of the word. nihil super stare: “there is nothing standing above”. ast superstitit aliquid…non apparet [?(ςς/55/§)]: “but there is something above. There is a standing above of something which is not apparent in the external, that is, in the apparent” The figures or letters in parenthesis are puzzling graphically—two Greek letters or ligatured twice, the number 55, or C’s paragraph or section sign are equally plausible readings—and from lack of any known context in source material, all are meaningless textually. nothing more than a brain-image…in apparenti non apparet: Is Coleridge here taking issue with Berkeley? Cf the first of the Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous: “HYLAS: I must own Philonous, those colours are not really in the clouds as they seem to be at this distance. They are only apparent colours. PHILONOUS: Apparent call you them? how shall we distinguish these apparent colours from real? HYLAS: Very easily. Those are to be thought apparent, which appearing only at a distance, vanish upon a nearer approach.” Works ed A.A. Luce and T.E.Jessop (1948–53) II, 184. outness: Coleridge considered it Berkeley’s word; see CN III 3325, and in this volume 5281 and nn. For a related discussion and phraseology see TT 3 Jan 1823, where again Berkeley is referred to in this context. 4606 21½.84 In AP var down to nearer to 68. Coleridge was born 21 October 1772, but at least as early as 1801 he put his birth a day earlier (CN I 997) and was given to advancing the clock against himself; see also CN I 1252, II 2237, 2703. The only record among Coleridge’s admission papers to Christ’s Hospital is of the date of his baptism, 30 December 1772. At this 20 Oct 1819 date therefore Coleridge has made himself two years and one day too old. Mrs C, who is older: Sarah Fricker was born in 1770.
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Miss Bullock: Miss Elizabeth Bullock, sister of Margaret, Mrs [James] Milne, in Highgate; friendly neighbours from earliest days there. CL V 186. For “Miss B” see also CL IV 936 and V 4211. Williams: J.H.B.Williams, Gillman’s assistant. A long letter to him, dated “Oct 20th 1819–my 49th Birthday” does not fully clarify what appeared snakelike in Williams towards Gillman, but he seems to have been demanding more salary under threat of setting up in partnership with some other surgeon, possibly a competitor. CL IV 957–62. A gift copy of Sibylline Leaves (1817) inscribed to him was on sale in Valparaiso, Indiana, in 1978. 4607 21½.85 Was the first snow a subject for comment for a Devonshire man? Cf CN I 997. 4608 21½.86 AP 295 var; EHC has added to this entry the date attached to 4606 above in the MS. Cf CN I 882. There are charming references to Henry Gillman as a young conchologist in Sept 1816; CL IV 682, 684. Not in OED; the coined noun, “shell-seeking” is by the alteration of sy turned into an adjective. 4609 21½.87 Entered (with modifications) a second time in the notebooks, from Sir Walter Ralegh History of the World; see CN II 3085 and n. 4610 21½.88 Milton versus Salmasius: Milton’s first Defensio pro populo Anglicano (1651) was in reply to Claudius Salmasius Defensio regia pro Carolo I; a Second Defence (1654) was translated in 1816 by Coleridge’s friend, Francis Wrangham, and printed in his Scraps (1816) of which one of the fifty copies was presented by the author to Coleridge and annotated by him (Green SC 846). The translation appeared also in Wrangham’s Sermons, dissertations, translations, including…Miltons Defensio Secunda (3 vols 1816) III 9–199. Whether the Latin phrase here, “the latter barks, the former roars”, was coined or quoted by Coleridge has not been discovered. Did he think of it as he read Webster? See the work referred to in the next entry, where Webster’s “Epistle Dedicatory” refers to controversies “when the whole giddy Troop of barking Dogs, and ravenous Wolves, did labour to devour me”. But barking, roaring, howling, bawling, and the like are frequent accusations in the Second Defence, though not precisely in Coleridge’s phrase. 4611 21½89 The first two sentences in English (f44v) are in AP 279–80. The entry is made up of running comments on and around John Webster The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft (1677); Coleridge’s annotated copy is in the BM. Unlike the reading of Luther’s Table Talk reflected in entries 4594–4600 which show changes in pen, ink, slope of writing, suggesting more broken sessions with that folio, this entry is neater and more uniformly written, probably at a desk. Ille υeritatis…: The quotation and a shoulder-note reference to St Gregory I Homiliae appear on p 2 of Webster. Tr: “The defender of the truth should be a man who when he knows what is right is not afraid, and does not blush, to speak out”. The old Law of England…living truth: One notes that in 4599 f29v C had been thinking about Sir Thomas Browne, and referring to a small collection of his works which included Urn-Burial but actually here again he is jotting down and adding to another bit of Webster. Cf Webster’s attack on Casaubon, “a sworn Witchmonger”, for his charges in his life of Dr Dees, made after Dees’s death. Casaubon, Webster said (8):
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“cannot but allow of the Law that doth punish them for digging up the bones of the dead, to use them to Superstition or Sorcery; what may he then think the World may judge him guilty of, for uncovering the Dormitories of the deceased, not to abuse their bones, but to throw their Souls into the deepest pit of Hell?” f45 Luke, 6:26: Webster (13) quoted and gave the reference to the verse: “And woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you: for so did their fathers to the False Prophets.” The Quakers…by Baxter. In his autobiography Richard Baxter wrote Bk I Pt II § 431: And here the Fanaticks called Quakers did greatly relieve the sober People for a time: for they were so resolute, and gloried in their Constancy and Sufferings, that they assembled openly (at the Bull and Mouth near Aldersgate) and were dragged away daily to the Common Jail; and yet desisted not, but the rest came the next day nevertheless: So that the Jail at Newgate was filled with them. Abundance of them died in Prison, and yet they continued their Assemblies still! Reliquiae Baxterianae (1696) 436. See CN III 4459 and n, also 5246 and n. “If we consider…itself”: Loc cit var. In the first sentence Coleridge added state and circumstances. The second sentence appears to be Coleridge’s addition also carrying on more or less in Webster’s style. The remainder of this paragraph is Webster. It is worth noticing that in time Coleridge would scarcely know what was owing to Webster and what to himself in this entry. The difficulty and rarity of love and respect for truth was frequently a subject in Coleridge’s own works. f45v Tertullian & others cited by Lessing: I.e. in Anti-Goeze Chap III Tertullian is quoted “ut fides, habendo tentationem, haberet etiam probationem” (“that faith by being tested may also be confirmed”) and “vane et inconsiderate hoc ipso scandalizantur, quod tantum haereses valeant …nihil valebunt si illa tantum valere, non mireris” (“foolishly and thoughtlessly are they scandalized by the power of heresies,…the heresies will have no power if you do not marvel that they have such power”). Lessing Sämmtliche Schriften (30 vols Berlin 1796) VI 194–5; see CN I 377 and n. On Anti-Goeze see The Friend (CC) I 34n. Si de υeritate…relinquatur: Webster (16) quoted and gave the incorrect reference to Augustine in the margin; the passage comes from St Gregory the Great, Homiliae in Ezechielem I vii (Migne PL LXXVI 842): Tr: “If a scandal follows from truth, it is better for scandal to be allowed than for truth to be abandoned”. Naturæ ignari…: From Jean Baptiste Van Helmont as quoted by Webster (17), a page annotated 27 Oct 1819 by Coleridge. Webster was attacking witch-mongering, whether vulgar or learned, for attributing to magic and deviltry many “wonderful effects…if they did not themselves understand their causes”, and brings in “the learned Philosopher and Physician” in support, giving as usual a reference in the margin. The p. 597 Coleridge cites (after Webster) fits Helmont’s De injectis materialibus: Ortus medicinae (Amsterdam 1648). Coleridge altered and added to Webster’s quotation from Van Helmont, substituting the vivifying libris solis…legebant for Webster’s “per lectionem librorum” and adding υel a lectionibus suis alienum sonat. Tr: “Those who are ignorant of Nature [Coleridge adds: having learned about Nature by the reading of books alone,
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as one might read tales about the Emperor of China or some Tartar chief], lay claim to intimate knowledge of the secrets of Nature [Webster: by the reading of books]; what they have not observed, however [Coleridge adds: or what conflicts with their reading] they assume to be either impossible or untrue, or the work of witchcraft and the devil.” Nam et omni…: Quoted var from Webster 18, where the reference to Augustine’s City of God x is in the margin; Coleridge has inserted υiribus autem praeter υisum effecta; Webster has altered the sentence order. Tr: “For man is greater even than any miracle performed by man’s agency. No matter how cheap the natural marvels, that we can see, have come to be held because they are always before us, yet, whenever we contemplate them with the eye of wisdom, we see that they are greater marvels than the least familiar and rarest of miracles.” Augustine De Civitate Dei x 12 tr David S.Wiesen (Vol III LCL 7 vols 1957–). Webster…the whole §.1. of Chap. II: Chapter II, which attempted to define witches and witchcraft according to various writers, is introduced by the following paragraph (19–20): Those that are Masters in Ethicks teach us, that every Vertue hath on either side one Vice in the extreme, and that Vertue only consists in the mean, which how hard that mean is to be kept in any thing, the Writings and Actions of the most Men do sufficiently inform us. This is manifest, that not many years ago the truth of Philosophy lay inchained in the Prisons of the Schools, who thought there was no proficiency to be made therein, but only in their Logical and Systematical ways: so that (in a manner) all liberty was taken away both in writing and speaking, and nothing was to be allowed of that had not the Seal of Academick Sanction. And now when Philosophy hath gotten its freedom, to expatiate through the whole Sphere of Nature, by all sorts of inquiries and tryals, to compleat a perfect History of Nature, some are on the other hand grown so rigid and peremptory, that they will condemn all things that have not past the test of Experiment, or conduce not directly to that very point, and so would totally demolish that part of Academick and Formal Learning that teacheth men Method and the way of Logical procedure in writing of Controversies, and handling of Disputes. Whereas what is more necessary and commendable for those that treat of any controverted point in Writing or in other Disputations, than a clear and perspicuous Method, a right and exact stating of the Question in doubt, defining or describing the terms that are or may be equivocal, and dividing the whole into its due and genuine parts, distinguishing of things one from another, limiting things that are too general, and explaining of every thing that is doubtful? Those that would totally take away this so profitable and excellent a part of Learning, are not of my judgment, nor can be excused for having run into that extreme that is extremely condemnable. Let Experimental Philosophy have its place and due honour; and let also the Logical, Methodical, and Formal ways of the Academies have its due praise and commendation, as
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being both exceedingly profitable, though in different respects; otherwise, in writing and arguing, nothing but disorder and confusion will bear sway. Bacon’s…Lock: The precise reference in Bacon is uncertain because Bacon repeatedly stressed the need for data and experiment as methods of discovering knowledge, as opposed to mechanistic hypotheses. In An Essay concerning Human Understanding Locke’s denunciations of scholastic logic and preference for geometric over verbal demonstrations (e.g. in Bk IV) seemed to Coleridge no doubt to press for visual as against intellectual and ideal signs as evidence. What Locke called “natural philosophy” he restricted to observation and the factual, but unlike Bacon he also made use of the corpuscular hypothesis and so comes in for greater scorn here. f76 The Miracle of the Blind Man: Webster (51) discussed this miracle, using it to differentiate among Christ’s miracles. He refers to John 9:1– 3; see 4854 f52. Coleridge found verses 6 and 7 more to his allegorical purpose, whether from reading the chapter, or his memory, or Webster later at 139, which he annotated: When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay. And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing. το προπαιδευτιον: An expression common with Coleridge, in English as well as Greek, “the introductory training”; see below 5123 f46v Believe (says Augustine)…: Cf CN III 3888 and n. all faith begins in a predisposition, analogous to instinct: See below 4692 ff 21–21v. vital air, which the particular Will breathes…the first disposition to breathe…the power of drawing the Breath: Coleridge, often used the breath and breathing as metaphor or illustration; see 4613 and 4689 and nn. “in us both to will and to do”: Phil 2.13. prevenient Grace: Used in The Friend (CC) I 433; cf prevenient Spirit in 5249 f34v. την κολυοβηθραν: κολνµβηθραν: AV “the pool” of Siloam John 9:7. Coleridge stresses the secondary meaning of an enclosed piece of water, a reservoir; the primary meaning being a pool used for swimming or bathing. “he went his way…and he came seeing”; John 9:7. the first act of the Infant…at the Mothers breast: See on recurrences of this image, particularly in the notebooks, CN II 2352, 3107 and nn; also CN I 838, 867, 924 and nn. The cupping machine recalls Quarles’s Emblem VIII from Bk II of his Emblems Divine and Moral, and the accompanying plate; see 4975, 4981 and nn. not only a salve: See 4854 f55 fn. the reservoir of the Sent: I.e. Siloam; see 4612. 4612 21½.90 the active Substantive of the Messiah: From the Hebrew form, “mashiyah”, which is both active and passive, Anointer and Anointed, in Latin distinguished as Unctor and Unctus. the Siloam: the Latin word for “sent” in John 9:7 is “missus”; see 4611 f46v.
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sic ut patris…demissus: “sent down equally in the father’s and his own right and name”. 4613 21½.91 AP 284 var. “Alas! Alas! Alas!” Mrs Gillman wrote below this entry, which was applied personally and expanded in a letter of Nov 1819 to “the Author of Peter’s Letters to his Kinsfolk”, J.G.Lockhart. CL IV 966. See also 4689. Coleridge’s frequent personal identification with birds is discussed in CN III 3314n. His recurrent references to breathing (see e.g. 4611 f46v) remind one that he was asthmatic. 461421½.92 AP 284. Was Walter de la Mare, a reader of AP, influenced by this note, in his poem “The Veil”? Of whom among the celebrated anonymous was Coleridge thinking? He early detected Scott, long before Scott’s anonymity was publicly broken at a dinner in February 1827 when Scott admitted authorship of the Waverley novels. 4615 21½.93 defences of Xtnty. See 5158 and n. the stickling for Daniel: From Newton onwards, Daniel and Revelation became foundation stones for those theologians who used the time prophecies in them to argue the physical “Second Coming of Christ”. See 4912 and n. Coleridge’s view that Daniel was a local political tract of the time of Antiochus Epiphanes appears in an annotation on Eichhorn AT III 388 in CM; also in 5287 and n. Dodwell & Bentley: Henry Dodwell Sr (1641–1711) for his Dissertationes in Irenaeum (1695) and Richard Bentley (CN I 312) for his Proposals for Printing a New Edition of the Greek Testament (1721), and for his doubts on Daniel and Revelation, were widely attacked; see e.g. Biographia Britannica (1778–93) II 45, 231 and v 323. C is true…D. prophesied of him: In Matt 24:15–16 Jesus refers to “Daniel the prophet”, and among the literalists Daniel was used in contending that Jesus was the Messiah. See 4912n. 4616 29.26 This is written on the right-hand half of the page, a vertical line having been drawn to mark off a table of tenses for a Greek Grammar (CN III 4210 and n). Abstine a fabis: “Abstain from beans” (κυάµων απεχεσθε), the wellknown phrase is referred to in the first edition of TT where HNC quotes De Quincey on Coleridge’s conversation at Poole’s dinner table in 1807; Q accused STC of having stolen an explanation of this taboo against beans from “a German author”. HNC referred to Lucian, but see also Plutarch, in the Moralia, “The Education of Children” 12E. (Undoubtedly it was quoted by many Germans, and others.) “‘Abstain from Beans’ means that a man should keep out of politics, for beans were used in earlier times for voting upon the removal of magistrates from office.” Tr E.C.Babbitt (LCL 15 vols 1927) I 61. See also T.Browne Pseudodoxia Epidemica, etc.: Works 5A in CM I. αγονατον: “without knees” (animals), “without joints” (plants); it im-plies heeds no supplication as Coleridge has it, because the Homeric custom requires of the supplicant for mercy, prostration at someone’s feet, and grasping his knees. Diogenes Laertius preserved Aristotle’s explanation of Pythagoras’s dictum against beans “because they are like the genitals or because they are like the gates of Hades,…as being alone unjointed, or because they are injurious, or because they are like the form of the universe,…or because they belong to oligarchy since they are used in election by lot”. Diogenes Laertius VIII Pythagoras 34.
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Numa too forbad…: Plutarch in his Life of Numa Pompilius (715–672 B.C.), the second legendary king of Rome, attributes many Pythagorean practices to him but not the taboo against beans. Aulus Gellius records (10.15) a taboo against the priest of Jupiter (flamen Dialis) touching or even naming a she-goat, raw flesh, ivy, and beans. Zeus…the Father of Life: The Latin Jupiter is derived from Jovis pater, and Jove is cognate with Zeus; the meaning of the root At appears to be sky—light—heaven—as in dies “day”; the connexion with ζην, “to live”, was made by Aeschylus (Suppliants 584) and Plato (Cratylus 396 A, B). ζωης πατηρ πατηρ means “Father of Life”. κυω: “to be pregnant”, “to bear young”. κυανος: “dark-blue”, though Coleridge’s reasons are speculative. Modern etymological dictionaries suggest that his other words may be all from the same root. κυαµος: “a bean”, as Coleridge says, like κυάµοι µελανóχροες, µελανóχροες, “blackskinned beans”. Homer Iliad 13.589. blind appetences: Cf, among many uses, 4984 f89v, 5197, 5235, and nn. Infera: “infernal regions”. 4617 29.27 Picus asserts’. In Pico’s Heptaplus: Opera omnia (2 vols Basle 1601) I 3, his mystical description of creation, a preface to the reader begins: “Antiquity imagined three worlds. Highest of all is that ultra-mundane one which theologians call the angelic and philosophers the intelligible [Coleridge’s intellectual, translating Pico’s “intellectualem”], and of which, Plato says in the Phaedrus, no one has worthily sung. Next to this comes the celestial world, and last of all, this sublunary one which we inhabit.” Tr Douglas Carmichael Heptaplus: Pico della Mirandola (NY 1940) 75. So Swedenborg: E.g. in Heaven and Hell §§ 29–31. pantoïomathy. A coinage not in OED, from παντοίος “every kind of” and µάθησις, “learning”, i.e. “miscellaneous learning”. phytozoic, zoic, and noerozoic: The first and third are not in OED: “pertaining to vegetable life, life, and intellectual life”. Zoic also is Coleridge’s coinage; the earliest use cited in OED is dated 1863. Cf 4553 and n. Bichat’s dichotomy, zoic and zoophyte: I.e. Bichat’s division of life into the strictly animal and that common to animals and vegetables, was developed in his Recherches sur la υie et la mort, which was quoted in translation in Rees’s Cyclopaedia in the article “Life” [?by William Lawrence], as is stated—and the point discussed—by Thomas Rennell, the Cambridge Christian Advocate, in his Remarks on Scepticism (1819), which Coleridge read. See below 4825 and n. On Bichat further, see 4639, 4825, and 4829. In the QR for July 1819 the leading review article dealt with some of the main documents in the Abernethy-Lawrence controversy: John Abernethy 1. An Enquiry into the Probability & Rationality of Mr Hunter’s Theory of Life, being the subject of the first two Anatomical Lectures delivered before the Royal College of Surgeons of London, 1814. 2. An Introdn to Comparative Anatomy, Physiology…two Introductory Lectures…21st & 25th March 1816. Wm Lawrence. 3. Physiological Lectures. John Abernethy (1817) 4. Lectures on Physiology, Zoology & the Natural History of Man…Wm Lawrence (1819). 5. Sketches of the Philosophy of Life Sir T. C, Morgan 1819. 6. Remarks on
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Scepticism, being an Answer to the Views of Bichat, Sir T.C. Morgan, & Mr. Lawrence. Rev Thos Rennell (Cambridge 1819) 7. Cursory Obserυations upon the Lectures &c by one of the people called Christians (1819) 8. A letter to Reυ. Thomas Rennell. From a Graduate in Medicine (1819) Coleridge may have been stimulated by this article. He is here dealing with material to be found in his own TL. norma loquendi philosophicè: “standard of philosophic speech”. totus ubique…unvernünftig: “totally everywhere, is quite incomprehensible; not however irrational”. Coleridge paraphrases, adding apodictally, i.e. “demonstrably”; cf 4831 f57. Vernunft…sumptarum: In this final sentence in the paragraph, the mixture of German and Latin as elsewhere may represent a struggle for clarification through the examination of two languages. Vernunft (Reason), is an association (consociatio, Zunft) of verities (Wahren); (note the pun-like similarity of Zunft and nunft, Wahr and Ver). Understanding (Verstand) is the fixation and sub-stantiation (4679) of perceptions (Wahrnehmungen), of perceptions taken for truths (perceptionum pro υeris sumptarum). In the 7th B. of P. Mimndula’s Heptaplus…John & Paul…: Was Coleridge following up a footnote reference by John Donne? See CN III 4050 and n. In Proemium to Bk 7 (Opera omnia I 33) Pico quotes John 17:21 and I Corinthians 13:12: This is the true felicity, to be one spirit with God, so that we possess God in God, not in ourselves, knowing him just as we are known. For he knows us not in ourselves, but in himself. Likewise we shall know him in himself and not in ourselves. This is our whole reward, this is the eternal life, this is the wisdom which the wise men of this world do not know, that from every imperfection of multiplicity we are brought back to unity by an indissoluble bond with him who is himself the One. For this felicity Christ prayed to his Father in this fashion: “Father, bring it about that just as you and I are one, they also may be one in us.” This is what Paul was hoping for when he said, “I shall know Him not in part, but as He is. And if he hoped, did he not say rightly, “Who shall separate me from the love of Christ?” And he wished to be dissolved, that he might become one with Christ. Tr (cit above) 152. Diccearchus…: Dicaearchus of Messana, contemporary of Aristotle, “though he accepted divination by dreams and frenzy, cast away all other kinds”. Cicero De divinatione 15: De senectute…tr W.A.Falconer (LCL 1922). morbid sleep and a certain species of derangement: Coleridge’s modern interpretation of a later passage in the same work is of interest. Cf I 113 (tr ibid): “In fact the human soul never divines naturally, except when it is so unrestrained and free that it has absolutely no association with the body, as happens in the case of frenzy and dreams.” For Coleridge on “Second Sight” see 4908 and n.
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4618 29.28 The entry took some cues from John Webster The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft Chap VII; see 4611 and n. It is a chapter close to Coleridge’s own thinking, in which Webster discusses metaphorical or other imaginative ways of reading the Bible, and the logical interpretation of fact and miracle. See also the next entry. praeter intellectum…definientem: “beyond intellect”, or “beyond the defining mind/understanding”. (rationi contrarium): “contrary to reason”. (nihilismus turpis): “base nihilism”. σαρκος, intelligentia carnis: Webster 138 referring in his shoulder note to Rom 8:7 says: “And there is hardly one thing that the Scriptures are more against…because the carnal mind τò σαρκòς is enmity against God, and is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be; of which Beza saith: Probatio cur intelligentia carnis sit mors, quia, inquit, Dei esthostis”. (Cf 4924.) Webster continues, citing in the margin Isaiah 29:14 and I Cor 1:19, 20: “For it is voritten, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, , and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent; σύνεσιν And again, Hath not God .” made foolish the wisdom of this world? all the philosophy…natural and acquired: Cf Webster (ibid): “And the words of the Hebrew in that place of Isaiah do signifie all that height of wisdom or understanding, that Man either have by Nature, or acquire by Art and Industry.” πληρωµα: “pleroma, plenitude”, the fullness, or totality. Coleridge makes clear his use of the word here; see also for variants, e.g. 5233 and n. sophisma pigrum: in LS (CC) 148 Coleridge translated it “sophistry of sloth”, in Logic (CC) 119 “sophistry of indolence”, i.e. the easy, most obvious interpretation, shallow and wrong. Webster (138–9) decried various rationalisms including Socinianism; and he believed that though one should “keep close to the literal sense, if it include not an absolute absurdity” in interpreting the Scriptures, yet there is a place for “Allegorical, Metaphorical, Mystical, and Parabolical Expositions”. f17v This συνεσις, =the Mosaic : This “intelligence”, “prudence”, “wisdom” is the Mosaic “Serpent”. sensu Mosaico: This is all part of Webster’s argument (142 foll) against the literal and in favour of an allegorical interpretation, “in the Mosaic sense”, of the serpent’s temptation of Eve in the Garden of Eden (145–6): Moses (in that action) doth purposely intitlr the Devil by the name of a Serpent, because (by his effectual creeping into the interiour senses, as also by infecting Mens minds with venomous perswasions) he doth very lively represent the nature, disposition and qualities of the venemous Serpent. And in this same sense was the Apostle jealous over the Corinthians, lest as that Serpent (which must necessarily be understood of Satan by a Metaphor of that Serpent) beguiled Evah through hersubtilty, so they might by the cunning of Satan in his false Apostles have their minds corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.
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Virgil: Coleridge quotes the Aeneid Bk III 89 var, spoiling the metre with animisque for atque animis: “Grant, father, an omen, and glide into our hearts”. The plate in Andrew Tooke’s Pantheon, the illustration to the chapter on Aesculapius, with the Trunk-like Club encircled by the serpent, the God-Man, and the little woman, appears in various forms in editions from 1726 onwards. Coleridge described the plate in a letter of 9–10 April 1824 (CL V 348–9), where Mr Gillman as a “demi-God” was substituted for the God-Man, Coleridge’s edition is unknown but see CN III 3683 where a 1771 edition among others have some claim. He could be writing from childhood recollections. See CL II 1042 for an application of this illustration to Davy. Tooke says that Aesculapius “was thought to have a Power of recalling the Dead to Life again. Whereupon Pluto complained to Jupiter… and at length Jupiter killed him with a Stroke of Thunder”. Eve, (Homo inferior, Humanitas passiυa): “inferior Man, passive Humanity”. Jah…(α πολλων): Jah, an alternative for “Jahweh”. Coleridge suggests that Jehova, the I AM THAT I AM of Exodus 3:14, the Word, and Son of the One God, the Monas, the descender into Hell, and the Saviour of mankind inspired this picture of the Greek, Aesculapius, who, according to one version, was the son of Apollo. Coleridge alludes to the derivation given by Tooke from Chrysippus, “from the privative particle a- and polloi [many] just as the Sun is called Sol because it is sole”. Tooke Pantheon (1771) 36 fn. …Θεάνθρωπος: “God the saviour, friend of man, God-man”. Syllogyzari…λεγοµενου: The Latin is Webster’s (143), the Greek was added by Coleridge: “A syllogism cannot be based on a particular fact or an unique occurrence.” 4619 29.29 The entry arises from Webster’s Chap x, on “Whether faln Angels be corporeal or simply Incorporeal, and the absurdity of the assuming of Bodies, and the like consequents”. See 4618 above and 4621 below. Skiomachy: More usually, sciamachy, sham or shadow-fighting, or, a fighting with mere shadows. among the Fathers, Tertullian, Augustin, Nazianzen…Bede, were Materialists’. Webster wrote (207–8) that Angels “are said to be incorporeal and immaterial: but compared to God, are found to be Corporeal and material. And of this opinion beside were Tertullian, S.Augustin, Nazianzen, Beda, and many others, as may be seen in the learned Writings of Zanchy upon this subject: with whose words we shall shut up this particular”, and he quotes the passage quoted by Coleridge below. On the other side of the debate, arguing that angels must be incorporeal, Webster cites “Aquinas, and the rest of the Scholastick rabble” (211). de rebus: “of facts”. Zanchius, one of the learned iss- & er[r]-imuses: Coleridge jokingly describes him with two forms of the Latin superlative: “one of the most learned of the most learned”. Coleridge evidently forgot Zanchius’s dates (1516–90). Mihi υidetur…poteris: Webster (208) begins with “Certum enim est, ex iis” etc, “For it is certain…”. Otherwise, with minor differences in punctuation, Coleridge transcribed it verbatim: “It seems to me from the accounts of angels in the Scriptures, that the interpretation of the Fathers is more probable than that of the Schoolmen—but whichever you follow you will not sin grievously, nor can you on that account be considered a heretic.”
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4620 29.30 Cahinistic…had been accustomed to: Perhaps based on a reading of Peter Heylyn “A Necessary Introduction” Cyprianus Anglicus (1671) 1–38, which traces the relation of the English Reformers to Calvin and other Continental ones. See 5202. Philipp Melancthon (1497–1560) and Oecolampadius (1482–1531) were Reformers who stressed a return from “Papal” to “Biblical” doctrines and the need for an ecclesiastical polity responsible to God alone but under the protection of the state. Arminianism: Cf CN III 3963 and 4300 and nn. Spallanzi’s animalcules: Coleridge refers to the experiments of Spallanzani (1729– 99), the Italian naturalist, whose Tracts on the Nature of Animals and Vegetables tr J.G.Dalyell (Edinburgh 1799) began in Chap I with “Observations and Experiments upon the Animalcula of Infusions”. See also 5086 n. He experimented by infusing various seeds in distilled water, examining them periodically, and seeing animalcula which, notwithstanding further subjection to intense heat (p 5) still lived. Similar experiments were performed with frogs’ eggs, etc, subjected to intense cold. dearing up…by Bull & Waterland: Daniel Waterland The Importance of the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity Asserted, in Reply to Some Pamphlets (London 1734) and George Bull Defensio Fidei Nicaenae, ex scriptis quae extant ed G. Zola (3 vols Ticini 1784–6). Cf the letter to Mr Pryce dated [April 1818] CL IV 849–52; and CN III 3560, 3934, 3968, and 4321 nn. Bolingbroke’s God without moral attributes: For a similar statement see The Friend (CC) I 46 and n, also a scornful letter to Godwin in 1800 (CL I 652). 4621 29.31 The entry appears to be later than 4611 and again quotes Webster The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft (1677) 208–9. Quicquid agit…mediatione virtutis: “Whatever acts, acts either by means of a direct application or by means of some power”. Webster quotes the phrase in “Chap X. Whether faln Angels be Corporeal or simply Incorporeal, and the absurdity of the assuming of Bodies, and the like consequents” (208): If Angels be simply incorporeal, then they can cause no Physical or local motion at all, because nothing can be moved but by contact, and that must either be by immediate or virtual contact, for the Maxime is certain, Quicquid agit, agit υel mediatione suppositi, as when ones hand doth immediately touch a thing and so move it; υel mediatione υirtutis, as when a man with a rod or line, doth draw a thing forth of the water, both of these do require a Corporeal contact, that is, that the superficies of the body moving or drawing, must either mediately or immediately touch the superficies of the body to be moved or drawn. Quicquid agit…υel magice: “Whatever acts, acts either mechanically or magically”. On this original meaning of magic C wrote a marginal note on Webster (p. 17), dated 27 Oct 1819. Cf also Lect 7 P Lects (CC). Vide Kant: A reference to Kant’s Die Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft (Riga 1787) 45–6, which deduced the laws of nature through a consideration of matter in motion. Coleridge’s copy of this, heavily annotated, is in the BM. See also 4929 n. Tertullian makes Spirits…quædam insecta: Cf
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Concerning the properties of their bodies it seems to have been the opinion of Tertullian (as I find him quoted by Mr. Baxter) that they had thin pure and aerial bodies which they could dilate and expand, condense and contract at their pleasures, and so frame them into diverse and sundry shapes; his words are these: Daemones sua haec corpora contrahunt, et dilatant, ut υolunt: sicut etiam lumbrici, et alia quaedam insecta. [Webster 213] Tr: Demons contract and dilate their bodies at will, as also do earthworms and certain other insects. Webster repeats the quotation from Tertullian in Chap XI 240. To Zanchius…Super Cantic. p. 504: i.e. to the quotation in 4619 above add this from Webster 213, a few lines below the passage above: Of this very point S.Bernard speaketh thus modestly: Videntur Patres de hujusmodi diversa sensisse, nec mihi perspicuum est unde alterutram doceam: et nescire me fateor. Sup, Cantic. p. 504. Tr: The Fathers appear to have held diverse opinions respecting them. I do not see any clear reason for teaching the one or the other, and confess that I do not know. Sermon v § 7: Bernard Cantica Canticorum tr Samuel J.Eales (1895) 27. Stillingfleet observes…true miracles: Webster (236) gives the reference in a shoulder note: Edward Stillingfleet “Book II, Chap 8. The rational evidence of the Truth of Christian Religion from Miracles” Origines Sacrae, or A Rational Account of Christian Faith (1675) 252–3. M+C=T: because T+M=C: Miracles plus Christianity equals Truth, because Truth plus Miracles equals Christianity. what is a proof of course of N. [nature] altered: See CN II 3022 and III 3278. Close in date and theme is a useful passage in a letter to Allsop of 1820: CL V 36. 4622 29.32 Continuing from 4617, 4619 and 4621 the discussion of the logic of accepting or rejecting the basic principles of animal magnetism, and consulting Webster on witchcraft for analogies and kindred evidence, Coleridge here was reading Webster’s Chap XII in which Bacon, Boyle, Helmont are quoted passim. in primo loco: “in the first place”. Van Helmont’s explanation of “these wondrous effects”, i.e. strange vomits by the bewitched, Webster describes (252): “first the Devil, by reason of the league with the Witch, doth bring and convey the things to be injected to the place, or near the object, and makes them invisible by his spiritual power”. Corn [elius] de Gemma: Helmont as reported by Webster says, “Cornelius Gemma de Cosmocriticis doth recite that he had seen a piece of three pounds or 48 ounces weight, of a brass Cannon, which a the daughter of a Cooper had voided by stool, with its characters or letters, together with an Eele wrapt in its secundines” (253). On the next page in Webster is the story of the vomiting Ox, introduced by “For (he saith) I have seen at Bruxells in the year 1599, that an Oxe” etc. toto coslo: “by a whole heaven”.
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So Wienholt, and Blumenbach: Arnold Wienholt (1749–1804); see also 4908 f69. Coleridge considered him one of the best writers on animal magnetism. Initially sceptical, Wienholt came to argue that for the very reason that it questioned medical assumptions, animal magnetism ought to be given a fair exposition and because it deals with what lies beyond ordinary perception, we should not quickly deny, simply on inadequate theoretical grounds, the facts stated. He was a practising doctor who described cases from his practice, not a controversialist. His chief work, Heilkraft des thierischen Magnetismus nach eigenen Beobachtungen (3 vols Lemgo 1802–3), isa useful compendium of contemporary theories and views of the more important practitioners. See also 4908 and n. Blumenbach’s views were well known to Coleridge personally; see CN I–III Index I 4623 29.33 For these eight lines of The Garden of Boccaccio (49–56) PW I 479, first published in PW (1829), EHC gives in a footnote a variant from his text that is different also from this MS; he said his source was “probably a fragment of some earlier unprinted poem… inserted in one of Coleridge’s Notebooks”. For the reading life-ful here, his footnote reads “playful”, and he omitted line 5. Philosophy/Poesy…: cf CN I 182, 383. Light,…meeting eyeless things…reflects the image of her inward self: Cf the Plotinian phrases in CN II 2164–2167 and nn in entries deriving from John Smith’s Select Discourses. Cf also the “eyeless Face all Eye” in the lines On Donne’s Poem “To a Flea”: CN III 4073 f146v; see also CN III 4074 and nn. f20 Metaphor and Simile…lisping prophecy: The line adds force to Coleridge’s early remark that he attended Davy’s lectures to improve his own metaphors. But there is a MS fragment that develops his meaning here: Similes and Metaphors judiciously used serve not only for illustration and refreshment. To inventive and thoughtful Minds they are often the suggesters of actual analogies—the apparent Likeness being referred to a common Principle, ex. gr. the animal life and flame to the vital Air present for both.—But they have a third use— namely, that on many occasions they present a far more perfect, both a fuller and a more precise & accurate language than that of abstract or general words.—For instance—I suppose myself to say—I have known many instances of men who are religious because they are good but not one of whom the person was good because he was religious—and I wonder not that it startles & offends. For first, it may be understood as asserting a goodness divided & even contradistinguished, from Religion; both of which positions are false, and dangerous Falsehoods.—But let me begin with explaining the identity or co-inherence of Morality and Religion, as the Transcendent containing both in one, and as one, that which our elder Divines meant by the Seed of Election in the Soul, and which St Paul calls the Root (Vide the aphorism on the equivocal meaning of the term, Consciousness) and let it be premised that by moral and religious I mean only two different forms & states in the development or gradual unfolding
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of this principle into distinct existence and outward Manifestation, so as to become severally the objects of distinct Consciousness—I may then safely speak of Morality proceeding from the Root of obedience as the Stem, with its sprays & leaves, and Religion from the summit of the Stem, as the Crown & Flower of the Plant. But this Flower with its Petals, which differ from the leaves by a more refined Sap, & a more transparent membrane, in their more harmonious arrangement, & in more intimate communion with the Light, is not only the Seat of its especial Beauty & Fragrancy, but the Seat and organ of its re-productive Powers, and giving birth to new growths, both Stem and Flower. To make the Image adequate & to give it a full spiritual propriety, we have only to conceive this process as proceeding in a succession of Acts in the same Individual, instead of its being carried on, as
in the vegetable Creation, in a succession of Individuals.
(For we may say with the old Schoolmen, to whom the cause of Truth & reformed Religion is under far greater obligations than the shallow & contemptuous Spirit of the Philosophy in fashion will allow itself to suspect, each immortal Soul is at once an Individual & a Species: or rather, an Individual containing its Species & co-extended and coenduring with it and in it.) We may likewise pursue the Likeness on to another point. That as wherever the Crown or Corolla is conspicuous, the whole Plant is called a Flowers, and all the numerous sorts of Plants thus distinguished have this for their common or family Name—naturally, & were it not for the mournful frequency of Pharisaical Hypocrisy, as universally would we express the whole of Goodness, the moral no less than the devotional Requisites, by the appellation, Religious, as, He is a religious Man, or the Religious of all ranks and denominations. BM MS Egerton 2801 f252–f253, undated. The wm, G & R Turner, has no date, nor are the leaves notebook pages. “fell not out in man & by man must arise”: St Paul’s numerous references to putting on the new man and putting off the old are found, e.g., in 2 Cor 5:17, Gal 6:15, Eph 4:24, Col 3:10, but not these exact words. Poesy shall rise into Philosophy…Poesy: See below 4692. Cf Chap xv BL (CC) II 25– 28, also II 185–6. On ποιησις, “poesy/making/creating”; see CN III 4397 f49v and n, the lecture notes for the thirteenth of the literary series, on poetry and art, 10 March 1818. See also 4832 f61v. 4624 29.34 The entry is so close physically to 4623 and so similar in ink and hand, as to appear almost a continuation. The Rhabdomancy…The Baquet of Zoo-magnetism: The art of dowsing, or finding water through divining rods by special gifts of the practitioner, was discussed in various numbers of the Archiv für den thierischen Magnetismus (see 4512 above), e.g. at II ii 89,
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in an article by Kieser, “Rhapsodien aus dem Gebiete des thierischen Magnetismus”; also at II iii 115–17; in Archiv III ii the first article is on “Das magnetische Behältniss Baquet und der durch dasselbe erzeugte Somnambulismus” also by Kieser. Another is about “Rhabdomantie und die Pendelschwingungen” (III ii 22–34), and in fact the whole number is given over to the subject of the influence of mind over matter by the use of rods, and the little tubs or troughs (baquets) of water used by Mesmer and others. potenziation: See CN III 4418 f13v and n. Galυanism: See below 4639 f22v and n. “man-loving God—God-man—man world-loving in relation to God-man”. f20 Oπιυµ…µαγνητικου?: “Opium and the whole narcotic genus of plants example and proof of the magnetic baquet?” On opium lettuce see 4719 and n. Surgeon Stott: The Annual Register for 1826 (p 6) described him, reporting a legal dispute over his will, as “the late Mr. Ely Stott, of Hartstreet, Bloomsbury, a surgeon and electrician of some eminence”; he died in Nov 1821, leaving a fortune of more than £40,000. Well-known for his belief in the extraordinary virtues of electrical treatment, self-educated, “originally a footman…a man of great natural endowments …with singular energy in the acquisition of his practice and his fortune”, he is unnoticed in the medical journals of the period. See CN III 4387 and n, and also 4506 above. “sleep”=“below the mind”. animus…ανεµος: suggesting that the Latin for “mind” is derived from the Greek νóος. (the circumflex accent indicating here that an m was omitted) rather than from or “wind” somnus and are etymologically closely related, but not, according to philological authorities, connected 4625 29.35 The first part of the entry discusses David Julius Pott Moses und David keine Geologen, ein Gegenstück zu Herrn Kirwan’s Esq. geologischen Versuchen in Briefen an Herrn Bergrath υon Crell as reviewed in Eichhorn ABbLitt x 177–88. The review includes David Julius Pott’s two parallel German translations of the first Creation story. It is clear that here Coleridge was following the review rather than Pott’s work itself. First Chapter of Genesis. I[st] V[erse]…7th verse: Pott translates both the Hebrew word boro in Gen 1:1 and the Hebrew word osoh in Gen 1:7 as schuf. (AV “created” and “made”.) 2. Pott (D.J.) renders our void…: Gen 1:2. 5. Are we quite sure that it is mere senseless-popular: Gen 1:2. The reviewer states (x 177–9) at some length that Pott’s work is addressed to a theologically uninformed laity. Pott renders Gen 1:15 “Tag nannte Gott das Licht/und Nacht die Finsternis—so wards dann Abend/So ward es Morgen/Erster Tag”. (AV “And God called the Light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the mornings were the first day”.) The entry has in the background CN III 4418, 4554, 4555, 4556, 4557, 4558, 4559. did call [,] make Day: I.e. by calling God made Day, Coleridge’s distinction between naming as mere designation and naming in the sense of calling forth or evoking. Yet cf Nomen (f21) below and n. id a quo noscitur: “that by which it is recognized”.
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Origin of the Cabalistic Philosophy…Cypher of the Cabala: I.e. the Cabalistic allegory of God as Light, the Creation as an emanation of lights, and the words of the Creation story in Genesis as symbols of the process. Coleridge was acquainted with Cabalistic theories from his reading in many sources—e.g. Tennemann x 170–85; Basnage History of the Jews (see 4709) 186, 207–29; Eichhorn NT II 171 and n. It is discussed at some length in Christoph Meiners’s life of Pico della Micandola; see CN III 374 and n. Cf P Lects (CC) Lect 3 ff112–113 and Lect 10 f448. Christ as the Logos: See 5297 and n. Verbum Dei…Nomen Dei: “Word of God”…“Name of God”. See above 4523 and n. whatever…converts hydrogen+oxygen…becomes Nitrogen…: For Coleridge’s speculation on the chemistry of the division of water from air and dry land in the Creation see 4555, 4562 and nn. Horne’s Comment[ary] on the Psalms, Vol. I. p. 76: This work is not mentioned in the Eichhorn ABbLitt review; George Horne A Commentary on the Book of Psalms (3 vols Liverpool 1816) I 76 var. Coleridge has corrected Horne’s to . the 70: LXX is the common designation of the Septuagint. The Greek for cords or bands is χοiνια, not χινια, given correctly in all editions of Horne except 1816, which may indicate that Coleridge was using that edition of Horne. f21 the first order of the Egyptian Gods: Here Coleridge returns to Pott, translating his version of Gen 1:11, then by natural transition summarizing and commenting on Carl Friedrich Dornedden “Erläuterung der Aegyptischen Götterlehre durch die Griechische in besonderer Rücksicht auf den Ursprung der Mosaischen Kosmogonie und des Mosaischen Gottes” Eichhorn ABbLitt x 284–378. whose name…Mendes, i.e. Pan says Herodotus: quoting Dornedden: Eichhorn ABbLitt x 358; see below 4794 and n. they were seven: Dornedden ibid x 360–1. Tr: “From all three orders we recognize some gods from other commentaries on the Egyptian theogony with as much certainty as historical truth can ever approach. So, for example, we discover that by the god of the first order, Mendes, is understood the week; by the god of the second order, Theuth, the first month; by the god of the third order, Osiris, the year, etc.” Παν: All; see e.g. 4555 f49. the Spirit of God on the face of the waters: Gen 1:2. which I make a first day…& so have 8: See 4556, 4558, and 4562 which apparently precede this entry. the Cabiri: Dornedden makes no mention of them here. For Coleridge on the Cabiri see CN III 4384 f149v and n, CM II Faber A Dissertation on the Mysteries of the Cabiri also CM I, Böhme Works 174, and Lect 11 P Lects (CC) ff495–500. των οκτω των πρωτων λεγοµενων Θεων: “of the eight gods called the first”; Dornedden quotes the Greek. (Eichhorn ABbLitt 360). In the 2nd Class…λεγοµενων ειναι: Dornedden ibid 360: Tr: “In the second, with the inclusion of Hercules…were twelve Gods: ‘Hercules is one of the second order, called the twelve’ ”. And in the third class…τριτων: Dornedden ibid 360: Tr: “And in the third, with the exclusion of all the others, was Dionysus (Osiris): and Dionysus one of the third’ ”. Dornedden replies…name of the Year: Dornedden argued (ibid 360–3) that in the first order, there were seven gods, plus their totality Pan, making a total of eight; that the
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twelve gods of the second order, marking the months of the year, arose out of the eight gods of the first; and that the gods of the third order, who arose from the second order but were to be excluded as they did not represent exact time reckonings, with the exception of Dionysus (Osiris), who was the year, or the totality of the second order. ∆ιονυσος…Θεων εγενοντο: Dornedden ibid 360. As Coleridge translated: “And Dionysus was one of the third [group of gods] who originated from the twelve.” Nomen, Nοµενον: Nomen, “name”, as from noumenon, “thought, idea”, as a higher reality, a favourite etymology of Coleridge’s; see e.g. 4770 and n. Bacchus: I.e. Dionysus. 4626 29.36 The entry is drawn from Karl Georg Schuster’s “Beyträge zur Erläuterung des Neuen Testaments” in Eichhorn ABbLitt IX 953–1054, particularly 1036–48. St Paul, Corinth: Schuster quotes I Cor 15:12 (op cit 1041). αιµα και υδωρ: ĸαι υδωρ: “blood and water”; John 19:34 op cit 1036. ειδωλον, εµπνoυν, σωµα πνενµατικον: “an apparition, a breathing spiritual body”. The entire paragraph has in the background Schuster, op cit 1044–7: Tr: And this perhaps was the point where this doctrine of a physical resurrection—which was so dear and comforting to the alleged disciple of John, Papias, no less than to John himself, the writer of the Apocalypse— grew together with the other concerning the Person of Jesus, or indeed where this latter at least grew out of the other, drawing nourishment out of it like a parasitic plant. If the friends of the former cited the example of Jesus, who was resurrected in flesh and blood with his former body, so the enemies very easily could sap the strength of this example with the defiant assertion that this matter of the body of Jesus itself did not have full justification, for without question it had been only an apparent or shadow body. I have no fear of going astray here, although the Gnostics, who later made so much ado about the person and the body of Jesus, have been expelled from the New Testament…but was there Gnosticism before the Gnostics? Probably the second century gave them their name, rather than their opinions, dreams, and language. The tree which stood in full bloom in this century must certainly have already laid down roots, have sprouted buds in the previous…. How easily in this double path—by way of either the despisers of the flesh generally and their idealized concept of the Messiah, or the gainsayers of any physical resurrection—could there have come into circulation even at this time, among others, the idea of an apparent body of Jesus, but not, of course, as a Gnostic sectarian opinion. And it is against this that this fact, with the witness of John to its authenticity, set forth with such rare zeal, appears purposefully and properly to stand here. Marcion supported…death in pericardio: Schuster op cit 1047: With precisely this Irenaeus later also fought the same error of Marcion: Adv. Haereses IV 57, p 357, ed Grabe. “How, if He were not flesh, but appeared as it were a man [Schuster inserts “a putative man, the shadow
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of a man”] was He crucified, and from His pierced side flowed blood and Water?” Tr John Keble The Five Books of S. Irenaeus Against Heresies (Oxford 1872) 405. Exactly so Tertullian…p. 366: Schuster op cit 1048: Compare Tertullian, de Carne Christi 358. “They beset the flesh of Christ with doubtful questions as if it either had no existence at all or possessed a nature altogether different from human flesh. p. 361. He was crucified— he arose again…but how could all this be if he really had not in himself that which might be crucified…I mean this flesh suffused with blood, built up with bones, interwoven with nerves, entwined with veins…this very body of ours…certainly testifies its own origin from the two elements of earth and water,—from the former by its flesh, from the latter by its blood.” Tr Peter Holmes The Writings of Tertullian (1869–70) II 163–4, 173–4, 185. Origen contra Celsum…απο τον σσµατος: Schuster, op cit 1048: Origen, Contra Celsum II i 416, ed de la Rue: Celsus says, What [does he say] while his body is being crucified? Was his blood like
“Ichor such as flows in the veins of the blessed gods?” He is merely mocking. But we will show from the Gospels, which were written seriously, even if Celsus could not accept them, that it was not the mythical ichor of Homer that poured from his side, etc.— Henry Chadwick Origen Contra Celsum (Cambridge 1953) 96. 4627 29.37 Aγγελοι: “Angels”. The word angeloi, “messengers”, was used in the Septuagint to translate the Hebrew malokhim, “messengers of Jehovah”—hence the special meaning in English and other modern languages. See C&S (CC) 169 114. Coleridge’s interest in the use of the word is seen also e.g. in marginal notes on Donne LXXX Sermons 9 and Hacket A Century of Sermons 23, 24, both in CM II. 4628 29.38 There is a curious confrontation here of Steffens and the Royal Institution. Coleridge was reading with a quick eye for grist to his own mill (i.e. his interest in the links between animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms) in or about a lecture (Feb. 1820) by Braconnot on the action of sulphuric acid on vegetable matter. An abstract of it was to appear later in QJSLA (July 1820) IX 392–5. As Braconnot’s work was widely discussed, Coleridge’s exact source is unknown. But he was also recalling, or reading and questioning, material on the differences in the distribution of metals according to climates, and the variations in ductility, iron in cold Peat Climates and the ductile in hot climates in Steffens’s Beyträge 168–74. On these pages Steffens gathered together evidence on the reasons for the location of metals in various latitudes, i.e. their degree of cohesion; summing up (174) he said (tr): “If we take everything altogether, it is in fact
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very likely that the quantity of the more coherent metals [e.g. iron] stands in direct relationship to the distance from the equator, while the quantity of the less coherent metals [e.g. lead] stands in reverse relationship.” Iron by gravitating Chemistry: The N-S axis in the Compass of Nature (4555) is also the carbon-nitrogen axis, and therefore the organic axis, and specifically of the animal kingdom, rich in nitrogen—hence Coleridge’s question, Whether at all…modified by…animal—medusae! The N-S axis in the Compass of Nature is also the earth’s polar axis—hence gravitating—and also, for Steffens and Coleridge, the axis of coherence and ductility (nitrogen incoherent, ductile, carbon coherent, not ductile). Furthermore N-S is the axis of the metals, whose ductility is determined by the predominance of the power of nitrogen or carbon. Therefore one would expect a correlation between gravity (specific gravity being a chemical quantity for Coleridge), latitude, metallic distribution, and vegetable matter in terrestrial strata. The whole argument is a summary, an extension, and possibly a criticism of the pages already cited in Steffens Beyträge and in his Grundzüge 41, 45, 46, 67, 104. Add to this Coleridge’s conviction that the metals are produced in geogony subsequent to organic matter (as implied in 4551 cited above), which has parallels in Steffens, and one has a partial explanation of the How far the revival of Metals may be attributed to decomposition υegetable? 4629 21½.94 The entry breaks off in mid-sentence. Sir Pertinax MacSycophant, caricature of a grasping nouυeau riche Scot in Charles Macklin’s The Man of the World (1781), instructs his feckless son, Charles Egerton, in the financial advantages of the art of “boowing” to the rich. In a letter of 30 May 1814, Coleridge suggested the long monologue on this subject to Charles Matthews as a potentially profitable part. CL III 501. Matthews was now a near neighbour in Highgate. 4630 21½.95 In AP 286 var. Abstraction’. See 4538, 4657 and nn. Cf CN III 4250 where the artists in the “littery” studio are Washington Allston and WW. Rafael: See CN III 4227 and n. Claude Lorrain: See TT 24 July 1831. Van Huyssen: Jan Van Huysum (1682–1749) was frequently used by Coleridge as an example of his imitation-copy distinction (as in the letter cited in the previous note). Sir Francis Legatt Chantrey (1781–1842). Having met him (?early in 1819) Coleridge wrote J.H.Green, 16 Jan 1819: “I am more and more delighted with Chantry”, referring to “the power of his insight, Light, Manlihood, Simplicity, Wholeness—these are the entelechie of Phidian Genius—and who but must see these in Chantry’s solar face, and in all his manners?” CL IV 911. In July 1820 Chantrey made a bust of WW of which Coleridge said “it was more like W. than W. himself’. W Letters (2nd ed 1970) III 615n. See 5280 f10v and n. 4631 21½.96 AP 86–7 var. Another example of Coleridge’s liking for simultaneous awareness of the vast or grand together with the minute or delicate; see e.g. CN I 1784. 4632 21½.98 AP 294, very considerably altered; the first paragraph is printed var also in “Omniana 1809–16”: LR I 345. This per-sonal one-page entry was written on f50 before 4633 and 4853 were on the surrounding pages, possibly with an intention of poetic development; cf the draft of Youth and Age in 4993, 4994, 4996.
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In 4853 Coleridge refers to Leighton’s Works (1819) IV, Lectures VII and VIII. Leighton’s Lectures II, III, and IV are on “Happiness”. Coleridge appears to be taking issue with the conventional arguments and rather condescending tone of the Principal to undergraduates in the University of Edinburgh. On the Eucharist, see CN III 3847n, and in this volume 5161 and n. 4633 21½.97 The last sentence, var, is in AP 298–300. ff48v–49 Value…Worth: The distinction had been made in No 26 of the 1809–10 Friend (CC) II 350 (I 556) and more recently in Lect 12 P Lects (CC) f585 in a discussion of Kantian concepts. f49 Guthrie’s Grammar: See CN I 1762 and n. Coleridge’s school-boy edition, possibly the 10th (1787), begins with “Astronomical Geography” as Part I, a description of the Newtonian solar system; it is highly exclamatory on the “thousands and thousands of suns, multiplied without end”, and generally emphasizes size and quantity. bellum internecinium: “internecine war”; see another context for the phrase in CN III 4418 f14. f49v The Homæomery of one of the elder Greek Physiologists: I.e. Anaxagoras. OED cites Thomas Stanley’s History of Philosophy and Cudworth’s True Intellectual System for the use of the word homœomery; both attribute to Anaxagoras the idea that particles of matter are homogeneous with their original, bones from bone, drops of blood from blood, etc, as Lucretius stated. Stanley op cit (1701) 63 quotes Lucretius De rerum natura I 830 foll. “Next Anaxagoras we must pursue,/And his Homoeomeria review./…entrails made/Of smallest entrails, bone of smallest bone,/Blood of small sanguine drops reduced to one;/Gold of small grains, earth of small sands compacted…”. Creech, whose translation of Lucretius Coleridge annotated (see under R.Anderson British Poets: CM I), does not refer to hearts either, nor does the original. Cf Logic (CC) 252. Tennemann (I 308–11) also discusses Anaxagoras and his “Homoiomerie”. the Ellipse might be the Law only of the planetary Systems…the Solar …parabolic— and the Nebula…in the Hyperbola: Coleridge has evidently been misled by Eschenmayer’s Psychologie into this more Naturphilosophisch than geometrical astronomy. Actually, only ellipses represent the bound orbits of planets; a planet in an open-ended orbit would leave its planetary (solar) system. But cf Eschenmayer (ed cit 4640n) 564–5: If we consider the intersections of a cone which gives us the ellipse, parabola, and hyperbola, the apex of this always remains untouched. With the hyperbola we have to imagine two cones with apexes touching in order to be able to lengthen the intersection through both. It is only natural to assume that whatever regulates all intersections cannot itself be regulated by them, and further, that the originator, the punctum generans, of the entire cone must lie in its apex, and therefrom it may be concluded that the Naturzentrum will lie in the point which unites the two cones with their apexes coincident. This point is the implicit All with its living dynamic, while the base of the cone, stretching out into infinity, gives us the explicit of the universe, or unbounded space. From this apex flow all functions and powers. The first function is the hyperbola, which manifests itself in the nebula. The immense sea of ether
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of the Naturzentrum is derived from this first and then, refracted from the under region, is set forth, where it assumes first the nature of the light, illuminating from the sun, that gives us our day. The second function is the parabola, which becomes real in the solar movements in the second order of spherical bodies. The third function is the ellipse, and this, as the third gradation which likewise falls under the unity of the sun, becomes real in the movements of the planetary bodies. On Eschenmayer’s astronomy see 4640 and n. His basic error here lies in his theory of the apex of the cone as “punctum generans”; analytic geometry teaches that the crucial aspect of any cone is rather its generating angle. See G.B.Thomas Jr Calculus and Analytic Geometry (4th ed 1968) 354. I.e. f50v because f50 had already been used for 4632; see 4632n. f50v Eternity a post: “later Eternity” i.e. as opposed to the Eternity preceding birth. three kinds of living existence, God, Man, and Beast: Coleridge later variously attributed this view, but in particular to Augustine with special reference to the belief in angels; see above 4627 and n. 4634 17.209 Brande’s Journ… 223: I.e. QJSLA Vol VI (1819), No ii pp. 20–31 and No 12 pp. 210–26, an article continued from Vol v (1818) No 10 pp 257–64, by C.F.Brisseau Mirbel on “Cryptogamous and Agamous Vegetation”, at this point discussing “Fungi, or Mushrooms”: This division, like the lichens and hypoxyleae, differs from every other in the shape, aspect, and peculiar nature of the species which compose it. Impressed with this variance, the Botanists of former days imagined that mushrooms were the spontaneous offspring of fermentation and putrefaction. They admitted without scruple the doctrine, that organized existences might be produced by apposition of particles of matter (moleculae), just in the manner of unorganized bodies; a doctrine which could only be broached during a total ignorance of the fundamental principles of animal and vegetable physiology…. The period came when it was no longer permitted to the enlightened naturalist to allow of the possibility of equivocal or fortuitous generations, in face of species established by the analogy and agreement of individual existences, endowed in their races with a constant mutual resemblance. This great task has been accomplished by the botanists of the present day, with a perseverance that reflects honour on their success. Fungi in general are of a very soft consistence; they grow either upon the ground, or under the ground, or in water, upon either living or dead vegetables, and numerous other substances of various natures. Almost all affect shade and moisture. They are extremely diversified in colour, but none are of an herbaceous green. No oxygen is given out by them under water: some transpire hydrogen gas, others acid carbonic gas; most of
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them dissolve easily, and undergo putrid fermentation. Chemistry has obtained several azotized products from them, such as albumine, osmazone, adipocire, a fatty matter, and a peculiar substance termed fungine by M.Braconnot. Some contain a kind of sugar, capable of crystallization. The forms of the mushrooms are extremely various, representing lobes, clubs, mitres, hats, bowls, branches of coral, powder-puffs, manes, carding instruments, strips of parchment, the scum that rises upon standing water, &c. &c.; many are furnished with radical fibres, others have none at all. QJSLA VI (1819) 222–4. f128 propagula: Slips, or layers, shoots used for propagation. Cf OED propagule. ramenta: OED ramentum (2) “A thin membraneous scale formed on the surface of leaves and stalks”. Uredo (Veg.) and the Volvox (anim): Ibid VI 225: In Uredo…groups of germs…so like what we see in Volvox that…we should be tempted to rank under the same generic head, the Uredo which belongs to the vegetable division of creation, and Volvox, which ranks in the animal division among the animalculae, peculiar to infusions. Coleridge was interested in mushrooms because their obscure mode of reproduction and their relatively high nitrogen content, suggesting kinship with animal life, made them difficult to classify. pantogamic: The adjectival form is not in OED, from pantogamy, “communal marriage”. children of the Air, &c, last §. p. 294. This refers to the same Journal Vol V (1818), “Report of Mr. Brande’s Lectures on Mineralogical Chemistry”: While we are considering the possibility of these considerations it may be remembered, that in the great laboratory of the atmosphere, chemical changes may happen, attended by the production of iron and other metals; that at all events such a circumstance is within the range of possible occurrences; and that the meteoric bodies which thus salute the earth with stony showers, may be children of the air, created by the union of simpler forms of matter. The singular relationship between iron and nickel, and magnetism, and the uniform influence of meteoric phenomena upon the magnetic needle, should be taken into the account in these hypotheses. QJSLA V 294–5 Mirbel’s own remarks on Linnaeus’s assertions: Ibid V 258–9: The philosophy of Linnaeus was far from being untainted with prejudice, any more than that of so many others. Instead of sifting and discussing the theories of those who preceded him, he laid it down as an axiom, that the
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law of regeneration in vegetables was necessarily the same throughout the whole system. It was he that devised and brought into use the term cryptogamous plants. He applied it indiscriminately to those species where he obtained some indistinct view of sexual organs, and to others where he never had the slightest glimpse of any. His doctrine was, that every organized being is endowed with the faculty of propagating itself either by egg or by seed; that an egg or a seed could not be produced without impregnation; and consequently, no organized being is destitute of male or female organs, though these may not be discernible by the eye of the observer. Subsequent investigations have however led to the opinion, that there do exist organized beings that produce neither egg or seed; and that others possess these means of multiplying themselves independently of previous impregnation; and most botanists of the present day agree, that the presence of sexual organs in many species included by Linnaeus in his cryptogamous class of vegetables, is any thing but proved. f128v No Mushroom of an herbaceous green…: See for this paragraph and the next the extract from QJSLA VI 223–4 quoted above. On Braconnot’s Fungine see 5266 where, with fuller details, Coleridge appears to have returned to the subject. Now the tuberous root of the Truffle: Ibid VI 224: We have already said that the peridium often constitutes the whole plant; an example of this is the truffle, a thick fleshy irregular shaped lump, resembling a tuberous root, multiplied by its seminula being set free by the dissolution of the whole substance. So see p. 225 No. XII: QJSLA VI 225 reads: The genera Uredo, Oecidium, and Puccinia, are intestinal fungi, and grow no where but within the cellular texture of plants. They represent in the vegetable kingdom, the Hydatides, Taeniae, Tetragulae, Ascarides, and other worms which live in the bodies of animals. There is this distinction however between the two, that the intestinal worms never appear outwardly, while the intestinal fungi pierce the epidermis under which they originate, and complete their growth in the open air. The manner in which this sort of mushrooms disseminate themselves is still a problem. There can be no doubt but that their impalpable seminula are introduced under the epidermis from without; but how? here the difficulty lies. Are they introduced with the moisture absorbed by the roots from the earth, carried forwards by the circulation of the sap, and deposited in that part of the texture which is exposed to the light; or do they penetrate directly through the epidermis, by the almost inperceptible pores with which it is so thickly perforated? This seems the most probable opinion. In whatever way we explain this phenomenon, keeping always clear of the theory of
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fortuitous reproductions, it stands an irrefragable proof of the wonderful divisibility of organized and living matter. When Coleridge objected here to Theory tyrannizing over Theory he seems to have been protesting the theoretical assumption behind the phrase fortuitous re-productions as begging the question of new or renewed generation; his interest in whether new races may spring up, and old races de noυo is seen in e.g. 4548, 4866. f129 Sœpissime…ubique: “Very often is not always, nor almost everywhere, everywhere.” The possibility of an 1825 date for this entry and 4636 from the same N 17, is raised by the relation of each to 1825 entries in F°; see 4636n, 5266. 4635 17.220 AP 157. This entry and 4636 are on the same pages as the 1805 entries CN II 2523–2524, 2652–2655; but clearly much later. The Geometrical Stair-case with…Landing-Places, familiar from The Friend, appears again in an annotation on Kant’s essay, Der einzig mög-liche Beweisgrund zu einer Demonstration des Daseyns Gottes; see CM under Kant VS (Copy C) II note on a back fly-leaf to 92, 93. 4636 17.221 I by itself + He…subject on itself as Object—therefore in the 3rd person: Cf CN III 4186. Possibly a thought suggested by Kant’s Anthropologie, of which Coleridge had the first two editions, 1798, 1800. The former with annotations (some by Coleridge, some J.H. Green’s?) badly cropped in an early rebinding is now in the library of the University of Nagoya, Japan. A note on p 4, most of it cropped off, ends with the words: “which he ever heard applied…Self.—The αυτοσι ανηρ [i]ntenser Eγω”. In the second edition (see CN III 4181n) a note by Coleridge on p 4, and Kant’s statement that provoked it, is relevant here. Kant says (tr) “It is, however, strange, that the child, although already able to speak fairly well, first begins to use ‘I’ fairly late, perhaps a year later. Up to then, it speaks in the third person (Charles wants to eat, walk, etc.), and a light seems to dawn on it when it begins to speak in the first person, from which day onwards it never again returns to the former manner of speaking.—Up to then, it only felt itself, now it thinks itself. The explanation of this phenomenon might well cause some difficulty to an anthropologist.” STC: “I am not disposed to deny this position; but the fact (3rd Person vice Ist in a Child) is too easily solved by mere imitation to be admitted as a proof.” Cf 5280 f10v and n. I + He=Ye: I.e. the y of Ye is a light i or an unaspirated one; (tenuis, or ψιλον, can have both meanings). Iotism is presumably the use of an initial iota (i or y sound); Coleridge coins Iψιλoν on the analogy of epsilon and upsilon. See 5090 f84 and n. Iotism is not in OED; iotize is there (1888). the H is Eeta: I.e. the English capital H is identical with the Greek capital eta (H), so that IH becomes Ye. Sentita or Sensa: From sentio, “feel”; sentita is Coleridge’s invented past participle, to mean, stressing the verb, “things sensed” as opposed to sensa, “sensations”. Cf 5189 and n, where the approach is less playful and etymological. ος: i.e. = “he” or “who”.
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ως, ωτoς: As Coleridge translated it, “Ear”. He probably had in mind also the Latin os, oris, “mouth”. Cf 4749. 4637 29.184 Were these further notes for a lecture (not used in this case) in the early 1818 series? A page is blank before this entry, which is followed on ƒ148 by the notes for the third lecture of that 1818 series (CN III 4388). The Schlegel references seem to point this way, and raise some doubts whether this entry should not have been included in CN III. Firm evidence for dating it is wanting, but at the foot of f148v, Coleridge was writing in a small hand to squeeze his words into the space at the foot of the page. The next page, overleaf, was already occupied by his notes for Lect III (CN III 4388), an argument for dating this entry later. It does not seem to follow the lines of either the first or the second of the philosophical lectures, though as the first was but sketchily reported one cannot be clear about that. Coleridge did speak there about Solon, Thales, Homer, and early Greek culture. Lect I P Lects (CC) and Lect 2 ff5–7. The entry appears however to link in some respects with the educational scheme in 5254§ 5 on the history of Greece. These are condensed notes deriving largely from Friedrich Schlegel Geschichte der alten und neuen Litteratur Pt I (2 vols Vienna 1815). The first para-graph and one or two elements in the second possibly derive from Schlegel’s first lecture, the last few lines contain very broad ideas which may derive from his seventh. Solon (rifattore di Omero): Solon (the editor/re-maker of Homer). With Solon…Greece as a nation: Cf Schlegel I 25–7: Tr: With Solon an entirely new epoch begins in Greek literature…. At the same time the philosophy of the Greeks began with Thales…Certainly they [the Iliad and the Odyssey]…must have originated…a long time before Solon; but they were first collected in Solon’s time, and it was in part by the agency of Solon himself that they were snatched from oblivion…and disseminated in their written version. The reference to Thales suggests that if Coleridge was using Schlegel here he was working directly, and not from Lockhart’s unreliable translation of 1818. Lockhart omitted this passage. (See CN III 4384n). the War of Greeks…: Again possibly Schlegel I 25–6: Tr: With Alexander this happy period ended. Demosthenes, who perished with his fatherland in its final struggle for freedom, surviving the conqueror for only one year, was the last great Greek writer who had a powerful influence upon his nation as a nation. The Greeks remained a cultivated, intelligent people: under the Ptolemies in Egypt they became almost more scholarly and learned than they had been in their beautiful old homeland. Only they were no longer a nation, and when they lost their freedom, they also lost their inventiveness and the true soaring of their own spirit.
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Is is only in a nation…that poetry, the fine arts…can arise: Not in Schlegel in so many words, though wholly in his spirit (I 15–16) and a conviction expressed variously by Coleridge e.g. in Lect 8 P Lects (CC) ff351–354. υide Steff[ens]: The reference, if it is a specific one and not Coleridge’s aphorism, has not been located in those works of Steffens Coleridge is known to have read. Or was Coleridge referring to Steffens’s life (born as he was in Norway but choosing to live in various often French-occupied German states) as an example of how science is able to flourish in any political climate? Greek-Asiatic Philosophy important in its influence on the Jews: I.e. the later Platonism. Schlegel wrote only of more general influences, and excluded the Asiatic element as influencing the Greeks and Romans; he did not mention the Jews. their sweet language: See CN II 2964. the Phœnicians: See 5307 and n. an Alphabet: Cf Logic (CC) 15–16. War under [?their] earlier king’s republican whence oratory (=Chili): Coleridge was writing quickly and elliptically, probably thinking of the early Greek kings and chieftains and their war-time oratory, contentions for power and reputation, in the Iliad I and II. The reference to Chile that follows is closely associated with a history of Chile referred to in CN III 3789, where the historian Molina stressed the importance of oratory and uniformity of language in a large country like Chile, which [like Greece] had many small kingdoms. II 19, 101–3, 352. See CN III 3789n. of the effects of genial climate on the organs of Speech: The idea may owe something to Schlegel (Lect VII) in the context of the decline of Gothic and the rise of High German (I 255–6). Cf: Tr: This is how I explain the origin of the High German language. The German tribes which had originally dwelt mainly around the Baltic Sea developed changes in their language as they migrated towards the South, for example, the Goths who moved from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea and founded a great empire there, living among many strange nations and even adopting single words from them. They developed a dialect of their own and a quite distinct langauge. In southern German, particularly in the Alpine regions, climatic influence of mountainous country had its usual effect in producing harsh tone and hard gutturals. On the attribution of the chi and the theta to the Goths cf 5307 and n. the digamma…the gnai of the Hebrews: See 4644 f28v, 4765 f43 and n. See also Logic (CC) 25 and n. Homer before Solon=Nibelungen: Cf Schlegel Lect VI (1218): “… there can be no doubt that…something of the Gothic heroic poems and much of those that Charlemagne collected and arranged, as Solon did those of Homer, have survived in the Nibelungenlied.” Cf CN III 4384 ff151, 151v and n. 4638 29.3 So far as physical position in the notebook goes, this entry like 4638, 5237, 5238, 5239, could have been written at various times. The ink is blacker than that of other entries on the page.
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Street directories list James Gooden at 46 Woburn Place 1815–22. In July 1814 he visited RS in Keswick, having collected books and MSS for him in Brazil. S Letters (Curry) II 102–3. Gooden was known also to HCR. Coleridge’s first extant letter to him was written 14 January 1820 (by a slip of the pen Coleridge gave it the impossible “14 Jan 1814” date, manually repeating the 14). The MS of the letter, in Dr Williams’s library, is indubitably clear, but the Highgate postmark is 15 January 1820, and Coleridge spelled the address “Wooburn” as here. 4639 29.39 The entry is in an ink darker than those immediately before and after it. Warmth midway upward to…Light [as antithesis to] W[armth] m[idway] downward from L[ight] towards Grav[itation]: See this material in the context of 4628 above and other “Compass of Nature” entries, e.g. 4555, 5090, 5092 and nn. See also TT 8 Aug 1831. Zenith and Nadir are important here because the powers are seen in Coleridge’s productive anastatic system. The difference qualitative: I.e. in the kind of underlying, producing power, not just in degree; see also 5103n, 5155n. subinfime: “very lowest”, from sub and infimus, “lowest”. Life…term…misappropriated to Vegetables: E.g. inter alios by Bichat; see related statements by Coleridge in 4617 and in entries referred to in 4553n. See also many related entries on the nature of life, e.g., 4677 and n, and TL esp 35–7, 40, 42, 44, 47–58. For Coleridge, vegetable life, represented by the power of reproduction but without “irritability” is different in kind from animal life. Trieb: Cf Schelling Einleitung 290 (tr): “Every product is a finite, but the infinite productivity of Nature concentred in it must have the tendency [Trieb] towards infinite development.” Trieb was much used by many naturalists interested in a theory of life, e.g. Blumenbach (see CN III 3744n), a word and a concept Coleridge found useful; see also Triebfeder in CN III 3556 and n. And some poetic links are collected in 4926n. W[armth] anterior to L[ife]=Vegetable…: In a letter of Sept 1817 to Tulk, Coleridge defined warmth as “the Indifference of Light and Gravitation” (CL IV 773); the discussion is generally pertinent to this entry. Steffens (Grundzüge 48) says that the total unification of the N-S and W-E polarities produces warmth. Relation of Latent Heat &…Specific Gravity: See above 4628n. Animal life a step higher than Solarity. See 4640 f23 and n. Ergo, the Worlds not animantia as Giord[ano] Bruno holds them: I.e. not “living things”; Bruno refers to them as such often in De innumerabilibus, immenso et infigurabili. See CN I 927, 928 and nn. Zamboni’s columns: In QJSLA (October 1819) VIII 177–80, “The New Voltaic Pile of Two Elements” by Giuseppe Zamboni was summarized, and evidence of electrical reactions cited. In the same number galvanism was frequently mentioned, and the fifth article was on the “Agency of Galvanism in the Animal Economy”. But the argument in the entry seems to lie in Coleridge himself. f22v Galυanism: In this context, galvanism is, as Coleridge suspected, what we should recognize as galvanic electricity, produced by the contact of two heterogeneous surfaces through the intermedium of an electrolyte as e.g. in a battery. Galυanism (after Luigi Galvani who in 1792 described electricity chemically produced) was still a loosely used term for a newly recognized phenomenon. It was discussed by John Bostock M.D. in
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perhaps the first monograph on the subject, An Account of the History and Present State of Galυanism (1818). Coleridge’s question whether galυanism may include two powers that will hereafter be known by proper names could arise from Bostock’s description (15) of the difference of opinion between Humboldt, who thought it “entirely a vital action…essentially connected with the living body”, and Galvani and Valli, who regarded it as a proper electrical phenomenon” and called it “animal electricity”. On Coleridge’s further reading of Bostock see 5150; Bostock’s Physiology referred to there was perhaps a source of Coleridge’s double Heart, or the two chambers. In discussing respiration Bostock described the right and left ventricles (II 175–7) and the difference between arterial and venous blood. He also wrote at length about warmblooded and coldblooded animals and about “animal temperature”, II 243–310, but this was a subject dealt with by many physiologists at this time. See also e.g. 4604 f42v. Galvanism was also used in therapeutic contexts and entered seriously into theory-of-life discussions. The question raised in the final sentence appears to originate with Coleridge. 4640 29.40 The entry originates in Coleridge’s continuing interest in reconciling Genesis I with contemporary science; at this point he is caught between the conflicting theories of Heinrich Steffens and C.A. Eschenmayer. The arguments are closely intertwined, but it seems clarifying to treat them separately in succession and not precisely in Coleridge’s order. Multeity: Here used in a new context in this transcendental astronomy; cf CN III 4352, also 4545 f45, 4554, 4556, 4662, to cite but a few other uses. lucifutura: that is to become light” After Caloric the1) appears to have no consequent series. a focus of the proper radiant heat…dilative conductible: In Eschenmayer’s theory, each star is a focus of the aether, i.e. the focus of two rays of aether which had been dispersed by the star clouds. Similarly, Coleridge seems to regard each planet as a focus of heat radiating out from the sun. The radiant Heat of the present Epoch is presumably heat transmitted across spaces envisaging other temperatures in previous cosmic periods and in future ones. Radiant Heat and dilative conductible heat are two modes of the action of heat, requiring distinct dynamic descriptions, i.e. descriptions in terms of powers, which Coleridge does not offer but is seeking. Dilative conductible heat is heat in a body, i.e. a power, and thus not at all to be equated with caloric, a fluid. Coleridge seems at first in this entry to be looking at Eschenmayer for answers to Steffens, but then come a series of running reflexions on Heinrich Steffens’s essay Ueber die Bedingung der Möglichkeit einer innern Naturgeschichte der Erde in Geognostischgeologische Aufsätze 268–75. There are some relevant annotations by Coleridge on these pages of his copy in the BM. The heart of Steffens’s theory is couched in his question (268): “What if the history of the formation of the earth co-incided with the history of the development of the planetary system?” Steffens (269) like Coleridge raised the possibility of the mutual interdependence of the planets, rather than their entire dependence upon the sun; he did not raise Coleridge’s issue of radiant heat. Steffens’s enormous Years & seasons are the consequence of his assuming a different rhythm of the earth’s rotation round the sun due to a different angle of relation between the two in those ancient formative times (tr 272–3): “given the slower movement of the
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earth which we have assumed, both the summer and the winter would last longer in each hemisphere…”. According to Steffens (273–4) this accounts, as Coleridge here points out, for the facts of huge strata of vegetable Origin with equal strata of mere mineral action intervening. Calor lucifuturus: “Heat that is to become light”. f23 Coleridge’s geological facts in the next paragraph, “the vegetable remains, chiefly found in the Regions toward the pole” are referred to (without his specification of palmtribe and fern) in Steffens (270) as evidence wholly justifying his theory that the angle of relation between the sun and the earth was different in the ancient aeons: Tr: And if the geognost proceeds to find traces of perfect equatorial vegetation in northern regions, moreover in a definite relationship to definite mountain formations, he is wholly justified in concluding all that follows [i.e. the theory outlined above], and in this way sets limitations to empirical astronomy without allowing it to prescribe unnatural limitations to himself. One such “unnatural limitation” that Steffens refers to is Laplace’s determination of the cyclical obliquity of the poles, which Steffens spec-ifies does not exceed 1° 29 (271) but he proceeds to disregard this in proposing far wider angles of oscillation for ancient times. Coleridge’s comment, either these Vegetables were anterior to the Solar System…or seems to rest on his accepting Laplace, and hence criticising Steffens’s argument. Coleridge’s marginal note in pencil extends from 270 to 272: Most interesting (to me) to observe, how close Steffens is to the truth, how like the balls in an Electric Machine he is snatched towards it, and like them in the next instant flies off again. Still the Sun is at work as in praesenti—with Summer, winter, Spring and Autumn—only we must interpret them sensu apocalyptico, days=years, and years heaven knows how long!—Hence, as in all half truths, contradictions and sturdy assertions. Thus the assertion (foot of 270, last L but 3) is not tenable: since for aught we know the same effect might have been produced by a greater density of the Atmosphere, and generally by a constitution of things more favourable to the reception of Heat, as Schubart has well shown.—Still, however, Steffens’s Hauntings of the Idea confirm me who had matured it in my mind long before I was aware of any such coincidence, and who had arrived at it by a road altogether different. I take the contrary: See 4639, 4652 for Coleridge’s discontent with Steffens’s derivation of Kepler’s laws, and in his disillusionment with the Identitäts-lehre he began to seek a new method; see 4662. Eschenmayer’s fanciful derivation of the sun: C.A.Eschenmayer in his Psychologie (Stuttgart and Tübingen 1817) § 448, § 460—see CN III 4435 f26v, 4436 f22v and nn— argued (453) for what Coleridge calls planetary plurality—that no star was without its circle of planets. Furthermore, that every solar system had a central body which governed the whole, and determined the distances, paths, and speeds of the other bodies. This established the principle of a Naturzentrum, as the ordering principle for physical bodies, and indeed “a necessary causality of Nature” (457). Mathematically, it could be demonstrated that there need be no body at the Naturzentrum in order for it to function. Therefore it was not simply a matter of equilibrium between bodies, but rather the theory
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of a centre containing the rules for each particular relation in the system and from which the action of the whole system proceeded (454). There was much in this scheme to recommend it to Coleridge, though some of his marginalia on the Psychologie are negative—especially on the fantasy elements (487, 488, 490). But whereas Eschenmayer identified the Naturzentrum (f23) with the objectification of the free causality of Will, Steffens’s system Coleridge had rejected as pantheistic, and because it did not make room for creativity, God, and chaos. Eschenmayer’s Naturzentrum, on the other hand, contained the triplicity of three cosmic forces, Light, Heat, and Gravity, which enabled Coleridge to get at these three fundamental forces of Nature Philosophy without using the Identitâtslehre. Light, for Eschenmayer, was the objectivication of freedom. f22v the Ellipse having been previously shown to be necessary: Eschenmayer said (544), “The Ellipse is another image of the whole, and we find the chief features of our system in it.” On Eschenmayer’s astronomy, see 4633n. The distances of the planets might be fixed…: This follows from an inner proportion which lies in the action of the sun (ibid 547–54). This force is subject to fluctuations, though caused in part by the conjunction and opposition of the planets. It is completely chemical in nature, and proportional to the quality of the mass (e.g. heat) and not to the quantity of the mass (e.g. gravity). (On quantity as the ground of quality see Coleridge 4515.) This force is related to Magnetism, Electricity, and Galvanism in the same way that heat is related to them: and it is this force which causes variation. Here was the jumping-off place for Coleridge’s must there not have been…a prior oscillation (f22v). The oscillations of a force which governed chemical and ipso facto biological activity, would have meant that the production of various forms of life should have correlated with changes in the distances between the planets (Kant’s tidal friction). Hence the facts of huge strata of vegetable origin with equal strata of mere mineral action intervening, referred to by Steffens, did not require, in Eschenmayer’s scheme, the regular periods of fruition, imagined by Steffens. In Coleridge’s view, it was the creation of the vegetables which established the present fixed relation between the planets. The energy which once caused them to fluctuate being stored up in the coal beds of the earth etc. Moreover, it seems that Coleridge thought of this process as occurring in conjunction with the creation of the sun rather than after it (f23). The sun was a by-product of the introsusception and rejection of the mass of light which became focussed at the centre. The anticipations of Titius & Schubart: Titius is the name of many prominent German nature historians but probably Coleridge refers to Johann Daniel Titius and his Lehrbegriff der Naturgeschichte zum ersten Unterrichte (Leipzig 1777). Here Titius began with the physical world and proceeded through mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms. His §§ 20–23, in which he discusses the variations in the effects of fire and heat from the sun and in various bodies at various distances, might be taken as “anticipations” (though scarcely scientific in presentation), Titius being mainly concerned about the Zusammenhang of its cosmos and everything in it in one harmonious system. Forty years later G.H.Schubert’s Allgemeine Naturgeschichte (Erlangen 1826), which Coleridge annotated, proceeds on a similar plan but in much greater detail, with sect ii on the system of the fixed stars, iii on the sun and the planets, and iv and v on the physiognomy and the history of the earth’s crust. Schubert writes tentatively about contemporary knowledge of the planetary system, but he compares the planets (including
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the sun), in sect iii, § 12, to apples of different sizes on one tree, by which analogy, apparently Coleridge assumes, it is impossible to tell which, the larger or smaller, would come to ripeness first. Allgemeine Naturgeschichte 91–107. But Coleridge writes critically of Schubert on a front fly-leaf of his copy of this work in the BM: “One great defect meo saltem judicio, of Schubert’s System or Scheme of Thought is the sort of contrasted divinity which he assigns to Light, and quasi proprio quodam jure, to the Solar Light or Atmosphere. But throughout Schubert too much confounds the powers and the eternal Laws, that are the conditions of the actualization of the Powers”. Dilative-Contractive…Contractive-Dilative: See also 4564 and 4659 and nn. The relations of these powers continues to be a central concern for Coleridge; see esp 4811. On contractility see 5150. f23v Vegetable Creation is clearly the passage from Magnetism to Electricity …Animals are a potenziated Galυanism (M[agnetism] + E[lectricity]: This is virtually a statement of one of Steffens’s principal theses in his Beyträge, developed throughout the whole work. See also 4028 above and cf 4617 and 4825. relation of the Insect world to man: Cf “So…ought I to be talking to Hartley!—and sometime to detail all the insects that have acts or implements resembling human/the Sea snails…the wheel Insect…”. CN ii 2538 f63. Coleridge had resolved (CN I 959 and n, II 2538 and n) to begin Hartley’s education with natural history. Moses…interposes…post poses, the Insect Creation: On the fifth day “God created…every living creature that moveth” (Genesis 1:21), and yet on the sixth day, “God made…everything that creepeth upon the earth…” (Genesis 1:25)—immediately before he made man. the law of Tripolarity…Brugmann, Hamberger and Van Schwinden: See Eschenmayer Psychologie (253) and his discussion of “Organic aether”, where he refers to these scientists and says “We can observe the whole nervous system under the laws of magnetism, electricity and galvanism”: Tr: We can consider the entire nervous system under the laws of magnetism, electricity and galvanism; be that as it may, our measure must still be the general proportion of+0− represented in every order. In this way we arrive at a regular sequence of changes to which under certain conditions the nervous system is subject, and which we can include in the collection of dynamic laws of life. It can be seen particularly clearly in the alternation of polar attraction and indifference which Hamburger, Brugmanns, van Schwinden and others have demonstrated in physical magnetism, and which, applied by analogy to the brain and the nervous system, allows us a glimpse into the inner nature of animal magnetism. Cf also TL 87 foll. On Tripolarity see also 4784, 5143, 5155, 5290 and nn. Electricity recalled into Magnetism, or Magnetism impregnated by Electricity: I.e. the interaction of the NS (magnetism) and the WE (electricity) in the Compass of Nature. See also the Synthesis…of Magnetism and Electricity 4814, also 4896, 4929 and nn. 4641 29.41 Coleridge’s Vol. I. p. 51 of the Marcus and Schelling Jahrbücher der Medicin als Wissenschaft is a slip for Vol. III. Pt I. 51. (the BM has his annotated copy of
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Vols I-III bound together). See CN III 3764, 3980 nn for the use of this work and this volume. Coleridge’s opening lines are a précis of A.F.Marcus Versuch einer Theorie der Entzündung “An Essay towards a Theory of Inflammation” of which Chap 4 deals with “external influences”. Coleridge questioned at this page (III 51) Marcus’s view, in discussing the inner and outer organism as being really one, that every change in the atmosphere affecting one affects the other, that Tr: So-called external Nature, in causing disease in the organism, is in this case subject to the same conditions. A storm is a fever in the atmosphere, just as there are fevers in the organism which we call our own. This atmospheric fever undergoes the same impulses as the other fever we know by that name. It has its impulse of cold, of heat, and of water-production. The lastnamed is probably the same as sweat in human beings. Everything happens here according to the same laws, the difference lies only in the organic structure. If it did not sound paradoxical, we might well maintain that there is no fever we are subject to, which the atmosphere does not also suffer. Plague and yellow fever are to be found in the atmosphere before they reach our organism. Coleridge protests: If not wholly false it can be true only under multiform and manifold exceptions & conditions: or every organized Being would be ill at the same time in the same district. Coleridge seems to have allowed nothing for individual susceptibility and resistance. He objected to quarantine—but perhaps chiefly on account of the physical conditions of the place of confinement; see CN III 3730 and n. See also 5143 for an interest in inflammation. the body diseasing the Atmosphere…: Ibid 52 (tr): “…as we infect the atmosphere so it infects us”. Marcus went on to discuss contagion, the Black Hole, poor hospitals, etc. Let the Atmosphere be taken as an organism…: I.e. the inorganic world as participating in the life of nature; see TL e.g. 39–40, 42–6. zoophyte: The old term for forms of life between plant and animal was used by Coleridge in CN III 3476, pejoratively in CN III 3281. our late dear old King: George III died 29 Jan 1820; Coleridge thus provides a date for this entry some time between 30 Jan and 5 Feb 1820. do not the diseases of Spring differ from those of Autumn…: Jahrbücher ibid 53 discussed the link between weather and seasons and diseases, arguing that it is not heat or cold, even when prolonged, that bring disease, but changeableness in weather. The point involved in Coleridge’s question was not raised. 4642 29.42 Michael Scott, the Person: More usually, Michael Scot, on whom Coleridge’s fullest statement is in TT 16 Feb 1833, where he was discussed at length as a better subject for a drama than Faustus. In 4690 Scot is referred to the Edward I time (c
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1239–1307) rather than that of Wickliff (c 1365). The disparity is slight for the shaky chronology of the period but might indicate the sources of Coleridge’s reading on Scot, about whom the historical facts are negligible, and dates especially are wildly various. He appears in most histories and commentaries on magic. Homo Agonistes…personificatum): “Man as Agonistes, the essence which personates/sounds through (or is personified/made to sound through).” Agonistes originally meant Competitor, then Champion applied to Christ especially, to martyrs, champions of the faith, or to the faithful. Cf a note on Milton’s Samson Agonistes in Milton Poems ed J.Carey and A.Fowler (1968) 331. Coleridge was frequently in later years to use this play on the derivation of person and the concept of persona, a mask, as used by ancient actors to enhance features and magnify voices. Cf e.g. the Pipe ad per-sonandum in 5244 f34. The advantage over Dr Faustus: It may be relevant to notice that the first article in the London Magazine for Aug 1820 (II 125–42) was “Goethe and his Faustus”; it tells the story of the 16th-century Dr John Faustus. Coleridge said he did not see any numbers of this magazine until Nov–Dec 1820 at Lamb’s (CL V 125) but no doubt the subject was discussed in his circle and is undatable for him. Prelude—Interpretation of the Bible: The young Coleridge (1796) thought the senses were to be overcome or disciplined in the individual and the race, an educational process in which
Fancy is the power That first unsensualises the dark mind lines 80–1 Destiny of Nations: PW I 134. He came to see the senses as having an essential constructive part in the understanding; see e.g. the end of 4541. Hence presumably the possible use of magic in early instruction? superscientific: OED gives no use before 18 81. The Parable of the Garden—to be fenced: Did Coleridge intend to use the garden of Isaiah 5:1–7? He appears here to be paraphrasing and conflating more than one passage. 4643 29.43 Good Friday March [31] 1820…Peter’s more sure word of Prophecy: 2 Peter 1:19: “We have also a more sure word of prophecy”. (AV). The Greek reads καì βεβαιóτερον λóγον. The meaning turns on the grammatical function of βεβαιóτερον (“more sure”), i.e. whether the sentence is correct in AV or means, as Coleridge and many scholars think, “And we have the prophetic word [made] more certain”, i.e. that Christ’s mission referred to in the preceding verses, fulfils the words of the prophets. Cf similar views in marginalia on Donne LXXX Sermons 59 and Skelton Works 318: CM II, IV. 4644 29.44 The entry has much the same physical appearance as 4642 (Feb–Mar); 4643 of Good Friday March 1820 was written, at the foot of the page, later than 4642 and possibly also after this entry. The first part of the entry only is printed here, it being preliminary to an attempted Greek grammar, the text of which will appear in SWF. This introduction well illustrates Coleridge’s interest in words and logic and is linked to his sense of the wider importance of them in philosophy and religion. ut sciamus nos scire: “that we may know that we know”.
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f25v God is a most pure Act: Coleridge in CN III had resolved his difficulty in thinking of an act or action in connexion with God (CN I 1072 and n); see CN III 3974, 4265 and n, 4359; also below 4907, 5143, 5241 f30. For the meaning of pure Act see below (f26), “an Absolute Will or…as the Absolute eternal Source”. αυτοπατηρ, αυτουιος, causa sui: “father of himself, son of himself, cause of himself’. On these Greek words see 4929n. a fortiori: “with stronger reason”. I am that I am…the literal sense of the Hebrew words: See 4523, 4671, 4702 and nn. f26 Eternity is the…Condition of Time: On the fallacy of applying the accidents of Time to an Eternal, see an early awareness in CN I 334; also 4853 and n. co-inherent, also below (f26v) co-inherence: OED cites Coleridge and BL for both words. argumentum in circulo: As Coleridge translates it below, “argument in a circle”. f26v Identity of Noun and Verb: The analysis here helps to explain how and why for Coleridge every process of language, logic, philosophy, and religion is related to every other. per hypothesin…causâ: “by an imaginary hypothesis, for the sake of argument”. A point producing itself into a bi-polar Line: See 4513, 4784 f128v, 4843 and nn; also 4538. 1 Prothesis 2 Thesis 3 Antithesis 4 Synthesis: The diagram was compressed at the foot of f26v above the footnote; it is clear enough in MS but impossible to represent in print. A semicolon has been substituted for a dash (or a fullstop) after preferable, and but Identity contrasts better with INDIFFERENCE has been given the extra line for which there was no space on the MS page. As Coleridge enjoined below on f27v
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Theosophy: Cf 5406 and n. Coleridge’s most sympathetic references to it are to be found in his marginalia on Boehme. See a note referring with approval to “Theosophy from Heraclitus (500 A.C.) to S.T.C. (1817 P.C.) …”: CM I under Boehme Works I i 55. Zöonomy: A natural verbal progression from Erasmus Darwin’s Zoonomia; cf the first recorded appearances in Thomas Forster Sketch of the New Anatomy of the Brain and Nerυous System of Drs. Gall and Spurzheim considered as comprehending a complete System of Zoonomy (1815). Did Coleridge know this work, first published in the Pamphleteer No IX? Forster does not define the term precisely but evidently means the study of man as an animal with special attention to his distinctive features, the brain and nervous system, on the phrenological principles of Spurzheim. Anthropology: Coleridge appears to use this word in the general sense (de homine) common in his time, not in the later, more restricted application (OED after 1860) to the races of mankind. Conversations…1817–1820: Probably the Thursday evening classes; see CL V 28, and the Logic (CC) Introduction xliv-liv. two red books elder…bought at Mr Bage’s: N 27 is identifiable by the Bage label in the upper corner of the inside back cover, but the other Bage book has disappeared. Possibly it was either N 31 or N 32, both of which were missing from the series in Dec/Jan 1930/31 when the first descriptive list was made at Ottery St Mary. Dr Thomson: Thomas Thomson; see 4873 and n. Mr Brande: See 4560n. Hatchett: See 4580 and n. potenziation: Potentiate is attributed by OED to Coleridge Chap 12 BL (CC) I 287, potentiated to a lecture on Shakespeare, and potenziation to J.H.Green in Vital Dynamics (1840). insulated Life…: I.e. life in specific form, phenomena which, according to Coleridge’s “principle of individuation” TL (42–3), have separated themselves as realizations or products of life as a power. In a note on Steffens Beyträge 170–3 (on a back fly-leaf), Coleridge criticised the Naturphilosophen for overlooking the difference between the “attractive or negative magn [etism]” and the “Contractive=insulating Power”, or “negative Elect[ricity]”. This principle he applied to σζ~(vegetation) and σζ…(animal life), as well as to rock crystals, in fact up through all the strata of organized energy, mineral, vegetable, and animal. concluded with the Teeth and Bones: Cf 4580 f99. Chemists and Galυanists of the existing Scottish and Anglo-Gallican… School: Including such electro-chemists as Davy, Brande, and Thénard. 4646 28.5 the preceding P.B… and the other I.e. N 27 and another now missing; see 4645 f2v and n. CHYME. Saliva: See 4541 and 4559; also CN III 4363–4364, though these last hardly answer to a chemical analysis. In a late notebook (56.3) Coleridge described chyme and chyle as “the first Products of Assimilation”. Much of what Coleridge says here is in Brande’s Manual 460–4. Coleridge’s interest in saliva (see also 4514) was probably stimulated by Gillman’s work on hydrophobia (published in 1812 and being revised in October 1824); see CL V 375, 378, 386.
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Coleridge also displayed an interest in snake venom (see 4719) and its relations to saliva. Sir E.Home’s Lectures: Everard Home Lectures on Comparative Anatomy, in which are explained the Preparations in the Hunterian Collection (I, II 1814; III and IV 1823; V and VI 1828). Lects IX and X of the first course of lectures, delivered in the spring of 1810, dealt with the stomach and the two processes of secretion. Lects III and IV of the second course in 1813, were on the digestive organs of birds; here the ostrich family of Java (cassowaries) and of Africa were compared, with much stress on their significance as illustrating the adaptation of anatomy to food supply and mode of life. On this subject see an earlier interest, in CN II 2325. f4 alter’d: The same joke and pun in CN III 4301 suggests that the philosophic friend is the same as the one who wrote the letter to the author of BL reported in Chap XIII. the paronomastic art: on Coleridge’s interest in puns and punning see CN III 3542, 3762, 4444 and nn; and for another example of his enjoyment of this kind of wit, see 4748. Natura Naturans… Diapata the Diva Diapanta Punifica: “Creative Nature…Divine Punstress through all”, the divine All-punstress, as Coleridge in part translates it. Natura Naturata: “Created Nature”; see above 4521 f89v and n. “truly a rebus in things”; see f7v below. CHYLE: condensed from Brande Manual 462–3, except for the query concerning the double-taste mixed not united. Lymph I.e. 4580. f4v Hatchett’s admirable communication…Phil Trans: In his Lectures referred to above, in Lect IV of the first series, Home said, It is to Mr Hatchett that we are indebted for our present knowledge of the chemical analysis of these different substances [shell and bone] which throws so much light upon their structure, and enables us to arrange them into a beautiful series, containing first those composed of animal matter and carbonate of lime; then those in which the hardening matter is principally carbonate of lime, but to which is added a small portion of phosphate of lime; afterwards others, in which the earth is almost wholly phosphate of lime, but still with a small portion of carbonate of lime. I 60–1. f4v But Home reported many of Hatchett’s communications, e.g. in Phil Trans Vol 96 for 1806 Pt II, 372–6. Brande, Hatchett, and Home shared their findings informally, and Home records in Lectures on Comparative Anatomy (1828) 14–15 that in 1812 he, Charles Hatchett, Sir Humphry Davy, Brande, Brodie, and Mr Children formed an “Animal Chemistry” society, with Hatchett as president and Brande as secretary. Coleridge may well have known whose observations were the source of any published paper. f5 Brande’s statement: Manual 462–3.
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Bichat: Was Coleridge going to look into M.F.X.Bichat Traité d’anatomie descriptive (Paris 1814)? Or Bichat’s Anatomie général etc (4 vols Paris 1812)? Or into Thomas Rennell’s summary in his answer to Bichat, Remarks on Scepticism (1819)? See on the last 4617, 4825 and nn. Or was he going to Rees’s Cyclopaedia (CN III 3855n), the article on “Life”, in which Bichat is much discussed; see 4517 and n. Blumenbach: If Coleridge examined Blumenbach he would have found some discussion of Chyle in Institutiones Physiologicae (Göttingen 1798) tr John Elliotson The Institutions of Physiology (1817) 205–6, but not in so much detail as he already had. (“nitrogen”): Albumen and chyle are rich in nitrogen,—a commonplace by n 1819. Coleridge wants to know if nitrogen is passed to chyle as nitrogen or produced there. f6 mice…[in] a bason of caustic Alkali at the Royal Institution: Particularly if Coleridge saw the gelatinous mass, he would be reminded of Nostoc, in old Bailey’s Dictionary and the experience he connected with it; see CN I 1703 and n. f6v “hypotheses of so chimerical a cast…“as rather to resemble Eastern Allegories”: Brande in Outlines of Geology (1817) 19—reprinted in his Manual 480—after a rude and caustic sketch of the theories of Burnet, Woodward, Leibnitz, Whiston, Whitehurst and Buffon, Kirwan, De Luc, and others, says there are more geological writers he might discuss but “their general hypotheses are of so chimerical a cast, as rather to resemble Eastern allegories than European philosophy; they defy all crit-icism…. These are the inventions of Professor Werner of Freyburgh and Dr Hutton of Edinburgh”. Brande goes on to describe the Huttonian and Neptunian theories. See 4653 and n. O Endive and Cellery of European and R.I.Philosophy: Coleridge was jibbing at the dilettanti, provincial English and European attitudes towards philosophy and science, which even in the Royal Institution cannot endure a ray of light. palates of Lords and learned Ladies: Is Coleridge accusing Brande of subordinating science to society in the burning contemporary conflict over whether scientific societies should be run by patronage or the scientists themselves? like a cucumber: Cf Gullivers Travels Bk III Chap 5. (“carbon”)… (“nitrogen”): The lungs were generally in 1819 regarded even by Brande (Manual 465) as the part of the body where a portion of the oxygen in the atmospheric air inspired was saturated with carbon, but Brande and others did not consider that the body absorbed either oxygen or nitrogen. Cf 4854 and n. while Mr Ellis bars up one door (the pulmonary)…Brande and Brodie stultify the other…: Daniel Ellis An Inquiry into the Changes Induced in Atmospheric Air (Edinburgh 1807) 5, 72 argued that there was no absorption of atmospheric nitrogen by plants. Brodie: Benjamin Collins Brodie (1783–1862) apparently agreed with Davy and Brande that nitrogen was not absorbed from the soil. If the experimentalists were correct in their negative findings, nitrogen had to be produced by some action within the plant. Chemistry was totally unable to account for nitrogen fixation, and Coleridge was acute in seizing on the weakness. f7v “Eastern Allegory”: Referring sarcastically to the phrases from Brande quoted above. in the next article on Respiration: I.e. Brande Manual 466. Brande wrote that in respiration the colour of the blood changes because of the “action of the air” on it
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through the “thin coats of the circulating vessels”. Coleridge was quick to pick up the inconsistency of this in atomistic, corpuscular terms, for one thing cannot pass through another. For him the process was rather a dynamic one exercising powers rather than things. f8 On Newton’s Progression of Pores: See an early entry, CN I 93 and n. “in the Lion’s skin of mathematical calculation”: A Midsummer Night’s Dream III i. f8v Florentine Globe of Gold: A museum piece in Florence; see 4832 f61. even the Caloric is in Jeopardy: If it is a thing, i.e. an atomistic fluid, it is threatened by what is emerging; see 5144 and n. f9 υenous blood: Brande Manual 468 (§ 901) refers to Brodie in Phil Trans CII (1812) 379–93. f9v Abdera: According to Strabo, in Thrace, on the Nestos, just north of Thasos; the city was famous as the birthplace of Leucippus and his pupil Democritus, founders in the 5th century B.C. of the atomic philosophy; it was notorious among the Greeks for the dullness of its inhabitants. See EOT (CC) II 304 n 3. au désespoir: “to the point of desperation”. sine Rebus in Rebus: “without Things in Things”; see above f4. Rebuses: See an early distaste for them in CN I 475 and n. the Lady Chem’stresses, the fair auditory of the Royal Institution… Things in Things: As he said above, Coleridge hated the ubiquitarian Thing, but he was not often given to such bitter outbursts about women. Had he recently been to a lecture—a Friday Evening Discourse—at the Royal Institution when some of the ladies in the social converse afterwards, aroused his scorn? things “remain…hidden from our view”: Brande Manual 469 on the generation of animal heat. Zoodynamism, and the Life of Nature: Zoodynamism is Coleridge’s coinage for the kind of vitalism of which he became more firmly the proponent from about 1817 onwards. See a letter to Tulk of Sept 1817 (CL IV 775) and one to Green of 30 Sept 1818 (CL IV 873–6); The Friend (CC) I 492–5, esp the note on John Hunter, I 493. The attack here is on those who like Davy had become converts to Dalton’s atomism, but for at least a year, Sept 1817–Sept 1818 Coleridge had been struggling with the Scylla and Charybdis of the Schellingians on one hand who made Nature absolute, and abstraction a principle, and the various sorts of mechanists on the other. Zoodynamism was his answer to both. See CN III 4449, 4450 and nn. 4647 28.6 The last paragraph of the entry is written in pencil, with a few words overtraced in ink similar to the rest of the entry. Did someone borrow his pen for a few moments? Davy, Brande, &c, cannot die [deny?] that vital Powers exist: The slip is of interest in itself, and the conjunction of names in this context. By this time (c 1820) Coleridge was disillusioned about Davy, who had, he thought, abandoned his earlier Vitalist position and become “an Atomist”. See CN III 4221 and n; also a note on Boehme Works 1 i 43 in CM. f10v The powers, called vital…the powers called physical: Cf Davy’s “An Essay on Heat, Light, and the combinations of Light” (1799): D Works III 84: “Life, then, may be considered as a perpetual series of peculiar corpuscular changes; and the living body as the being in which these changes take place.”
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f11 Iliacos…: Horace Epistles 1.2.16: “Within and without the walls of Troy wrongs are done”. Eastern Allegorists: For Brande’s use of this phrase, see 4646 f6vn. Mr Brande’s assertion: Outlines of Geology 79 (Manual 509): It was once a great difficulty to imagine a combustible which should thus furnish fuel to melt these immense masses of primary material, and to conceive the real cause of that expansive power of heat which Dr. Hutton always flies to. But the discoveries of Sr H.Davy concerning the true nature of earthy bodies, have furnished unexpected evidence in defence of these apparent incongruities of the Huttonian doctrines. jure philosophico: “by philosophical right”. Eastern Allegorist, H.Steffens: See 4646 f6vn. Steffens Grundzüge 105 explained the formation of the earth’s crust by oxydation [fire] and hydrogenation [water]. Thus Coleridge argued that Steffens anticipated Davy. f11v The huge Boulder Stones…: H.B. de Saussure Voyage dans les Alpes, precedes d’un essai sur l’histoire naturelle des environs de Geneve (4 vols Neuchatel 1779–96) I 166–7 explained that the granite boulder protected the pillar beneath it from erosion. Coleridge evidently was arguing against catastrophism, using Steffens’s idea that granite is a product of reduction. Grundzüge 99 foll; also Geognostisch-geologische Aufsätze 228 foll. Cf 4551 f74v and n. Coleridge may have read de Saussure, but could have seen in Brande’s Manual 504n a reference to John Kidd Geological Essay (Oxford 1815) 168–9, who discussed de Saussure’s Debacle System. William Playfair Huttonian Theory of the Earth (Edinburgh 1802) 384 foll mentioned the granite boulder of de Saussure and opposed the explanation of a violent debacle of waters when the seas retreated from covering the mountains. Coleridge likely read Playfair, the standard statement of Hutton’s theory. 4648 28.7 f12v Nature…as a plastic Will, acting in time and …finitely: The footnote begins on the facing page (f13) below, where the central point is made, the attack on pantheism, and runs to the end of the entry. The footnote in fact appears in the MS to be less a footnote than a continuation of the entry, and therefore is so printed. On Life as plastic Will see CN III 3840, and in this volume 4929, 5150 and nn. f13 Finality…superinduced—not inherent: I.e. Finality as created by God and, contrary to Pantheism, not inhering by necessity in even the essences productive of forms. See CN in 4418 f11v and n. Life−Finality is=a Wen
a man: Life minus Finality, contrasted with
Life+ Finality (f12v), is like a Wen, as opposed to a man. The wen image occurs from early days—perhaps a personal revulsion. et impiâ pietate: “and in impious piety”. f13v Eastern Pantheism: Cf in the preceding entry, Eastern Allegorists (f11). See also CN III 4498 ff139v–139 and n, and Lect 3 P Lects (CC) ff82–88. Presupponens…Presuppositum: “The pre-founding [power] and the prefoundation/the presupposing and the presupposed”. A and Ω: Rev 22:13.
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f14 in the one, as Idea, in the other, as Law: In Man as idea, in Nature as Law. Cf 4649. : Nature “on the way to becoming God-like”— evidently supplied on second thoughts as an explanation of Life compleatly subordinated to Finality. the best Schellingians: E.g. Steffens; see 4776 ff84v–85. Λ in the IIν: “Logos in the Pneuma, Word in the Spirit”; see 5249 and n. f15 esse in percipi: A reference to Berkeley’s premise that “being is perceiving”; see also Lect 13 P Lects (CC) ff597–602. As I have demonstrated in I.e. as explained in 4646, this symbol means “N 27”; the reference is to 4540, 4541, 4545. (wann) die Natur keinen Schatten…: “when Nature casts no shadow on perception, perception does no violence to Nature, where both have become completely inseparable”. No German source has been found. 4649 28.8 Anticipation : Idea : : Theory : Law: Anticipation is to Idea as Theory is to Law, a common form of equation with Coleridge. Cohobation: Repeated distillation. On similar conjunctions of the terms used here, see The Friend (CC) I 419–23, 492–3, Lect 12 P Lects (CC) ff573–579 and n 63. Pay the post and go to Hell: Untraced. 4650 28.9 Further reflexions on the reading behind 4646 on the adaptation of animals to environment? Camelopardalis: Gi raffe. (labor improbus): Coleridge is using the proverbial phrase from Virgil Georgics I 146; Lamb used it in his poem “Leisure”: L Works v 56. Coleridge’s context seems to imply “relentless toil” or “degrading work”. (consociat se dapibus]…ANIMAL SOLARE EST: “ (he joins as a partner, in the feast)—no less is it lawful to embrace and to kiss a betrothed maiden or mother and sisters, either standing or sitting, so that his dutiful affection is not without love, and his love is capable of chastity.—.—In the preservation of his species, I admit, (he appears to be a slave), he becomes the servant of Nature and Earth; but he does not without injury to himself become a bondsman. He prostrates himself before nature, covering human face with human face—His eyes from above [are] cast down towards the earth, but towards the Earth occluded by the countenance of the Mother to be; that countenance intervenes lovingly ashamed and looking towards heaven, which is reflected rather than eclipsed by the closer and more domestic heaven of the husband’s countenance—Finally, Man truly is A SOLAR ANIMAL”: Untraced. If the couplet at the end is Coleridge’s it does not appear in PW. 4651 28.10 Lucretians: I.e. presumably those who, like Lucretius (De rerum natura v 783–804), held a theory of material evolution from a spontaneous generation of life. Coleridge possibly included such proponents of natural theology as the Oxford parsons 5061 and philosophizing Noachists (5119). Miraculists: Presumably believers in a miraculous Creation, literalist interpreters of Gen 1 and 2.
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factiously discharged: Coleridge’s weakness for a pun comes out in his severity against the illogicality of those who use so-called “facts” to support their faction (Miraculists) when by so doing they make themselves vulnerable to a similar use of “facts” by their enemies, the Lucretians. On “facts” see 5217 and n. 4652 28.11 The whole entry is a mixture of running commentary, précis, and translation of Heinrich Steffens Grundzüge 29–33. “The Bound poned as Boundless…: Cf Steffens (29): Tr: Every finitude [“Endliche”, which Coleridge translates as bound] is, when opposed to the Infinite, merely finite; in itself, however, an infinitefinitude. Thus, in relative counter-position, it appears as a subjective entity, having its object outside itself, as a mere formal entity whose real being lies elsewhere than in its own ground; in itself, however and apart from its relative counter-position, it is its own ground, and at one with it. From a relative point of view it is an (A=B), but from an absolute, an (A=A) or an A2. Thus the finitude, when it is stated to be infinite, acts as the second power, or the square of itself. See also 4775 and n. But there is no Square of I: I.e. I2=I. The Infinite in the Finite is a consequence in any dynamical theory in which matter is infinitely divisible. their system…ours: I.e. of the Naturphilosophen as opposed to Coleridge’s and J.H.Green’s system. See 4541 and n the 3 Laws of Kepler: Astronomy nowadays gives Kepler’s three laws in the following order: 1. All planets travel in an elliptical path with the sun at one focus of the ellipse. 2. A line drawn from the sun to a planet sweeps over equal areas in equal times. 3. The squares of the orbital periods of the planets about the sun are proportional to the cubes of the semi-major axes of their elliptical orbits. Steffens reversed the order, and so began, as Coleridge states, with The Squares of the periodic Times. This is the conclusion of a long paragraph enunciating Kepler’s first law: Tr: So it follows generally that the periodic times, in the case of all heavenly bodies, are in proportion to the square roots of the cubes of their distances from the centre, which is the first Keplerian law. Roger Long (1680–1770) must have been a legend in Coleridge’s time in Cambridge; his Astronomy in Five Books (2 vols Cambridge 1742, 1764), completed in 1785 after his death, became the authority on the subject. See also 4781, 4782 and nn. This alone given by Long as a Law: Kepler’s “first” law (in Steffens’s order) was given alone in § 90 of Long’s Introduction, merely as an example. All three laws were given by Long, without specific numbering however, in his Bk v Chap 10 § 1621: Vol II (1785) 705. f17v 2. (If I understand St. aright: Steffens (33) wrote—and in view of Coleridge’s uncertainty the original German is retained:
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Durch die elliptischen Bahnen der Planeten wird ihre relative Differenz angedeutet, so dass kein Weltkörper für sich, wohl aber alle zusammen, die vollige Cirkelbahn beschreiben, welche aber für die sinnliche Anschauung, (mit welcher schon nothwendig alle relative Differenzen bis ins Unendliche gesetzt sind), sich nicht offenbaren kann, sondern nur für die intellektuelle Anschauung in dem ewigen Wesen der Vernunft absolut ist. Daher die Nothwendigkeit des zweiten Kepplerschen Gesetzes. Tr: The relative difference of the planets is indicated by their elliptical orbits, in such a way that no single heavenly body but rather all of them together describe the complete circle, which, however, cannot be manifested for the perception [Anschauung] of the senses, (with which all relative differences right up to the infinite are of necessity already given), but is only absolute for an intellectual perception in the eternal essence of reason. Hence the necessity of the second Keplerian law. 2…. the second Keplerian Law: Steffens referred to but, as Coleridge says, did not state the second law explicitly. Is it the same as the Newtonian Law: None of Kepler’s laws is the same as Newton’s law of gravitation. Kepler’s laws alluded to by Steffens are laws of motion. 3. The Planets moving in Ellipses: Steffens (34) wrote: Tr: The actual equivalence of both unities, however, whose scheme is the ellipse, is restored by the very fact that the times are to the centre not as the circulating orbits, but as the spaces as a whole are; for since these are equal in area, then it follows that if the relationships of the times are the same as theirs, equal areas will be described in equal times, and it follows that the ellipse is expressed in its movements in fact if not in appearance. And this is the meaning of the third Keplerian law. Did Coleridge in reading Steffens turn to Long for confirmation or clarification? See 4782 and n below on a related point. In the first law…: Steffens (34–5) wrote: Tr: Whereas the first Keplerian law expresses the identity of the planet with itself, and the second the relative difference, the third expresses the synthesis of identity and difference, and thus these laws express the entire type of regularity in the movements and being of the heavenly bodies as relative totalities, and in so doing completely express the type of being of the particular in the general. f18 Kant in the commencement of the Einz[ig mögliche Beweisgrund zu einer] Dem[onstration des Daseyns Gottes]: This work appears in Kant’s VS II (Halle 1799) 55–246; Coleridge annotated three copies of this volume, one of which has a note on this work on p. 109. The “Math. Student” is the “intelligent pupil” in Kant, and appears in a paragraph beginning on this page, which is in fact at the commencement of Pt II of the
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essay, not of the essay as a whole. Kant refers in general to the astonishing order in the geometry of the circle, and proceeds to an instance. Tr: If we were set the problem of arranging sloping surfaces at various horizontal angles in certain lengths so that bodies freely rolling down them would arrive at the same time, anyone who understands the laws of mechanics would see that elaborate arrangements would be required. However, this arrangement occurs of itself in the circle with an infinite variety of positions, and yet in each case with the greatest exactitude. For all the chords adjoining the vertical diameter, whether they start from its highest or lowest point, at whatever angle you choose, have this in common: free fall along any of them will take the same time. I remember one occasion when I presented this theorem and its proof to an intelligent pupil; once he had understood it clearly, he was moved by it no less than if it had been a miracle in nature. And indeed, seeing such a multiplicity so strangely unified according to such fruitful rules in so seemingly simple a thing as a circle surprises us and rightly transports us in a wild surmise. f18v In the Planets…: Coleridge returned to Steffens (30): Tr: In gravity, all forms are indistinguishably at rest, as in the dark night of absolute being. But now all contradiction [Coleridge’s opposition] of forms is resolved into one form that is equal to the Essence and one with it (as the planets are), or the single forms are in counter position to one another in idea in such a way that the individual-in-idea [das IdeellEinzelne] is related to the whole as it is to its own ground. In the first instance, time and space, motion and rest are posed as identical, but in the second, motion will be manifested not in what is at rest and one with what is at rest, but as motion towards that which acts as its ground. From the former (the identity of rest and motion) arise the laws of motion of the planets; from the latter the laws of motion of the single bodies moved relatively towards the centre in which they rest, or the laws of gravity. The crux of Coleridge’s work here is the comment at the foot of f18 about the false assumption of Naturphilosophie that the finite is absolute. in the first [i.e. Essence], T[ime] Sp[ace], Motion…Rest. See below 4654, 4929 and nn. 4653 28.12 No need of Fire: Basalts can be seen as genetically derived from the older material of granite, instead of the result of fire; cf 4551, 4864 and nn. “The four Basaltes…: Cf Thomas Pennant’s Tour in Scotland: “This is the most northern Basaltes I am acquainted with; the last of four in the British Dominions, all running from South to North, nearly in a meridian”, and he gives the names, but spells Brismhawk thus. (2 vols Chester 1774) II 292. Brande discussed Basalt Outlines of Geology (Lect v) 116–22: Manual 527–9 (see 4646 above) but Coleridge was reading Pennant also; see 4783 and n. Brande argued for fire as the explanation.
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See above 4583 where a similar discussion goes on in relation to earths. Here, however, the earths are considered with an emphasis on their metallic derivation, and with reference to iron. This introduces the concept of magnetism and geo-magnetism, important, Coleridge says, for the geographic distribution of the Basaltes, as in the Magnetic Axis. Silica alumina Lime Magnesia: This is a series of earths seen in relation to metallic character—hence the circles symbolizing me-talleity—with different powers in the compass of nature predominating in different earths. Thus in silica the power of carbon predominates. For the other symbols, and the co-relation of chemical substances with powers, see 4555 and n; also App A. The new symbols are conjecturally interpreted to mean directional components of the Compass of Nature on which the metals are aligned (4555). Thus “oxygen plus west-east predominance in centrality” (or metalleity) diversifies “Magnesia” from “Lime” and υice υersa “hydrogen under the predominance of carbon minus the west-east predominance in centrality” div[ersifies] L[ime] from M[agnesia]—because in lime the west-east power is lacking, compared with magnesia. (Coleridge has confused his two symbols for lime; see 4583.) the “good Excellion”…a fine old word! But not in OED. (bono auxilio): “by (or with) good help”. N.B. “earth” instead of “metal”: See 4583 where Coleridge referred to silica, alumina, lime, magnesia, earths, using the triangular symbols; here he called them metals, using the circles. 4654 28.13 Evidently continuing the speculation in 4652 f18v above. On Time relatively to Space see also e.g. 4929 and on the entire idea of the entry as Coleridge developed it, see 4775, 4776, 4778 and nn. 4655 28.14 Ad Lectorem…To the Reader. For earlier caustic applied to reviewers see CN II 1850; CN III 3302, 3952, 4035, 4323, 4480 and nn. Against the personal attacks (in pre-libel law days) of erstwhile friends like Hazlitt, Wilson, and Jeffrey he was incapable of retaliation. Moreover he despised reputations based on reviewing; of Southey’s hack work in this line he was particularly scornful. See CN III 3661 and n. 4656 28.15 The general lines of the argument were used in Opus Max (MS) III. “something true”, “a verity”, as Coleridge defines it. heuristic: From Kant’s “heuristik”? The first English use recorded by OED is dated 1860. Also in 5094. f21 Handlungsweise: “a mode of proceeding”. (add Identity?): See 4765 and n. abstractions: See the next entry and n. inter res heterogeneas nullus datur antagonismus: “among things of a different kind there is no opposition”. See 4945 and n. f21v in mundo intellectuali: “in the world of the mind”. argumenti causâ: “for the sake of the argument”. f22 Ideas…Conceptions: see 4940 and n. f22v objective in the Subject…subjective in the Object: See 5215, 5281 and nn. f23 Proschema: “preliminary scheme” Not in OED. Organology: The word appeared in the sense of a study of the organs of mental activity in the title of a work by T.Foster Essay on the Application of the Organology of
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the Brain to Education (1814). But Coleridge was not using it in its phrenological application; see 4662 f32, 5293 and n. Cf on organon 4673 and n. 4657 28.16 Outline…in Rees: Cyclopaedia, Vol. XXV, P. II: The reference suggests that Coleridge was using a copy for which Vol xxv was in two parts; there is no other evident explanation of his “P. II” (or P. II). This encyclopaedia has quarto signatures, not page numbers. On the issuing of this work in parts see CN III 3569n. B.D. Jackson Attempt to Ascertain the Actual Dates of Publication of the various parts of Rees’s Cyclopaedia (1895) showed that Longman’s published the work in parts, two to a volume. The parts appeared from 1802 to 1819, on the completion of which a set of title pages was issued dated 1819 for the 39 volumes plus five dated 1820 for the volumes of plates. The two parts comprising Coleridge’s Volume XXV, Jackson dates without certainty April 1813, but this entry appears to belong to 1820 and probably Coleridge has access to the completed series. The article on “Outline” described outline as “ideal line” but it did not use Coleridge’s word Abstraction. On the word and process of abstraction see 4538, 4630, 4835 and nn; also The Friend (CC) I 520–1. It had for Coleridge crucial meaning philosophically in his dissection of the Naturphilosophie; see e.g. 4910, 5217 and nn, also the special interest in it in regard to Aristotelianism in 5133 f97v. f23v Pars sui completivus in Totum suum: “Part completing itself into its Whole”. Flaxman’s Homer, Eschylus & Dante: On the sculptor John Flaxman, see 5186; Coleridge refers to his famous illustrations, engraved by Piroli for the Iliad and the Odyssey, The Divine Comedy, and the plays of Aeschylus. These were mentioned in the Rees Cyclopaedia article. potenziations: See above 4645 and n. plastic Imagination: The old word “plastic” (cf plastic will in 4648, plastic Numbers i.e. Proportion in 4814 f54v, and the Plastic Powers of Nature—Laws as we now say, in 4899 f44) Coleridge found useful to his dynamic position, suggesting process, activity, making, for which latter he also used poesis, see CN III 4176 and n. Flaxman was a contributor on art and archaeology to Rees’s Cyclopaedia in 1819–20; was this article his, or by a knowledgeable friend? See 5186 below. 4658 28.17 Possibly initiated by Brande Manual 83 § 128 on Chlorine which says: “when a burning taper is immersed in a jar of chlorine, the brilliancy of the flame is much impaired, it becomes red, throws off much charcoal, and is soon extinguished” The entry appears to be incomplete. Was Coleridge interested in chlorine, its incombinability with Charcoal on the one hand, and its readiness to combine with metals on the other, in relation to its poisonous effects on breathing? sensu philosophico: “in a philosophical sense”; see the next entry. 4659 28.18 Heat and Fire: Combustion was for centuries a central problem to chemists. Hydrogen (~) and oxygen (…) are respectively that which is burned and that which supports combustion. In his copy of Oersted Ansicht der chemischen Naturgesetze (Berlin 1812) Coleridge wrote on the title page, “All bodies into Combustive, Combustible, and Neutral…But I cannot with my present knowlege of Chemistry see the advantage of this division.” Hydrogen and oxygen are not merely substances but symbols for West and East in the Compass of Nature; see 4929 where Coleridge divides chemical species into Combustive as opposed to Combustible; also 5405 and nn. For the relationships of Light and Warmth see 4855. Steffens Grundzüge 48–9 discussed warmth
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in relation to powers and to chemical process. For Steffens as for Coleridge these were fundamental issues. For Coleridge on caloric see 5144 and n. action of the red heat…Sulphuric Acid on other sorts: A standard means of producing oxygen gas; to Coleridge a significant problem is why heat should liberate oxygen from a compound while combination of a combustible with oxygen is generally productive of heat. Production of oxygen from oxyd of manganese by heat and by action of sulphuric acid was demonstrated in Davy’s lectures at the Royal Institution in 1802; for Coleridge’s notes at the time see CN I 1098 and n. The facts about manganese compounds cited here are also in Brande Manual 226 § 410. f24 wrestling war-embrace: As in CN III 4418 f14; cf “total embraces” CN III 4435 f28. See 5249 and n. In this entry the embrace is of the powers corresponding to oxygen and hydrogen, East and West. Contractive and Dilative: I.e. oxygen and hydrogen; see 4556, 4557 and nn. 4660 28.19 39 of the Phil Trans is the issue for 21 Sept 1668 in Vol III 771–4, the article on The Osteocolla “An Extract of a Letter” from Frankfort by Professor Johannes Christophorus Beckman. It made no reference to the German Hammosteus, a puzzling word not found in German dictionaries. Was Coleridge in a good library looking at the 39 on earliest volumes of Phil Trans, or .was he reading someone who quoted Osteocolla? There were articles in learned journals on the subject through the 18th century, chiefly disputing the nature and genesis of this arborescent tufa. Coleridge’s interest in this subject is part of his curiosity about the margins of the animal, vegetable, and mineral, and the light that chemistry may throw on such matters. the Fluorine or Phthoric Principle: See 4565 and n. 4661 28.20 In pencil. my Systema ενκυκλοπαιδενµενον: “my encyclopaedic System”. See the next entry, also 4652. that in consequence…subsisting as Bodies; Coleridge’s distinction between substantive and modifying powers is the key here. See a note on the front fly-leaves of Steffens Beyträge: The Powers of Nature, her Hand, as it were, form a Pentad=5 fingers, or four fingers and the Thumb. I. Attraction. 2. Repulsion. 3. Contraction. 4. Dilation. 5. Centrality—.Let the Thumb represent the 5th or Central Power.—Of these the Ist [[and]] 2nd [[are]] and 5th are the Constituent, substantive Powers: the 3rd and 4th the modifying or adjective Powers: 1 and 2=Magnetism; 5th=Galvanism; 3 and 4=Electricity./ See also a note on Oersted quoted in 4659n. are constituent, W-E (~and…) In the Compass of Nature, the N-S powers (/and are modifying. But in all bodies, all four powers are present in a dynamic balance; the predominance of powers determines the specific qualities of a body. In this entry, the co-presence and co-activity of powers underlies Coleridge’s statement that the activity of the modifying powers enables the substantive/constituent powers (embodied in carbon and nitrogen) also to act as powers, while, conversely, the activity of the substantive powers enables the modifying powers to subsist as bodies (hydrogen and oxygen). This is a consequence of the coadunation of powers.
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Coleridge here illustrated the workings of this approach by representing,~West or hydrogen, the power of dilation (4555) as symbolizing caloric,≡, which is therefore a modifying power. As the power of dilation~diminishes, the Northerly power,/, fixity and attraction, thus crystallization, increases. At the same time, the Northerly power comes to predominate over the easterly also. The Northerly power corresponds to the power of cold so that an increase of crystallization and of cold correspond to an increase of the substantive Northerly Power. Thus Cold is not a mere comparative—Heat. The association of cold with North and with magnetism (the NS power) leads Coleridge to iron, a magnetic metal—and to Steffens Grundzüge (1806) 139–40—The contraction of frozen Iron ist nur scheinbar (“merely apparent”) because it is merely a change in predominance from S to N, from repulsion to attraction, which is merely a change of the balance of N-S powers—only increased Cohesion, i.e. only increased Northerly power, and not true contraction, which is an Easterly power. Increased Cohesion involves a change in the balance of N-S powers, M —M, magnetism being the N-S power, and also the power of length—just as water expands—i.e. lineal enlargement—in freezing. Cf 4513 and n. 4662 28.21 The entry is Coleridge’s response to the Identitäts-lehre of Steffens in his Grundzüge. Coleridge’s copy was bound incorrectly (and contrary to his instructions) in front of Steffens’s Beyträge, and the confusion was increased by the label on the binding, which reads “Schellings Naturgeschichte”. The volume is in the BM. Steffens wrote (16) that nature is grounded in itself as an absolute and that consequently all things are identical in this absolute, e.g. (27) motion and rest, actuality and potentiality, space and time, subject and object, finite and infinite. Thus, he continued (40), the opposition of light to gravitation is not A to B but A to A. He saw being as the identity of becoming and infinite being (25) and generation as reproduction mediated by the relative identity of sex (70). This struck Coleridge as fraudulent, since the opposition of A to A, besides being meaningless, has no logic or dynamic for production. He had to have a genuinely dynamic system in which polar opposites synthesize at a midpoint. See CN III 4418 and n. Steffens, Handbuch p. 61: I.e. Grundzüge 61 tr: “Every chemical process forms a peculiar life of its own (a momentary identity of gravity and light); but because the process is only momentary, and ends with relative differences, the entire globe appears, from the chemical point of view, as something relatively differentiated, in which the seeds of individuality momentarily strive forth, but always to sink back again into the whole.” For Coleridge’s symbols see App A. f25v Corpus mortuum: “dead Body”. Usually Coleridge uses it like caput mortum, i.e. inert residue after distillation; here it is his synonym for Neutralization. Life must be anterior to the chemical process…: The crux of Coleridge’s position as developed e.g. in TL. ff28–28v momentaneousness and momentaneous are old usages, but momentaneity does not appear in OED. anastatic System: The system of creation of the world from the Chaos and its return to God; see 4554 and n; also CN III 4418, 4449 and nn. f29 the New Decorators of Spinosism: E.g. Schelling. Cf his statement that “‘Naturphilosophie’ as the opposite of ‘Transcendental-philosophie’ is mainly distinguished from the latter in that it posits Nature (not indeed in so far as it is product
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but in so far as it is both productive and product) as the Independent; hence it can be most briefly described as the Spinosism of physics”. Tr Einleitung 4; see also 4671 below. εν δε πληρωµατι…: “in its fullness are posited all things that really exist”. amphoterism: Not in OED; on amphoteric see 4942 and n. nisus redeundi…melius: “the impulse to return to identity…Progression to better things”. f29v Multeity: See CN III 4352, 4449, 4450 and nn; also 4545, 4556 and nn. Cf momenteity above. “[partaking of] both-neither”. Schellings System: Coleridge’s summary here provides an important clarification of his dissatisfaction with Schelling, which had accelerated since BL days; cf McFarland CPT Excursus Note XII. and mine: See CN III 4449, 4450; and in this volume 4673, 5122 and nn. Nur scheinbar: “merely apparent”. f31 which being…must so appear to us: This is written in pencil, with corrections, insertions, and some italicizing in ink, showing with what care Coleridge was struggling to be precise here. f31v Steffens’s Manual: The Grundzüge; see above f25. a πρωτον “the masculine force of a first truth”. ab et in precedenti: “following from and in a preceding cause”. f32 Gegensatz: “opposition”. chemical Action: “individual Life as contrary to chemical f32v individual Life Action”; cf Steffens’s sentence (Grundzüge 61) following the one cited at the beginning of the entry (tr): Chemical process=tendency toward assimilation; for assimilation is the striving to absorb differences in a determinate power”. dazzle-dimmed: Cf CN II 2793. ff32v–33 Steffens’s “irrelative Identity”: I.e. the Absolute without relative opposites, discussed in Grundzüge 17–20. =the Soul!!: See 4677, 5377 and nn. individual Ident[ity] of > 4663 28.22 Possibly Coleridge attended a lecture at the Royal Society 6 May 1819 when a communication of David Brewster to Sir Joseph Banks was read, or in 1821 he was reading the Philosophical Transactions for that year. Brewster’s article “On the optical and physical properties of Tabasheer” gives all the chemical details here, but does not refer to the bamboo source being female. Either that was already in Coleridge’s knowledge or, if he was in a good library, he turned back to Vol LXXX of Phil Trans (1790) 273–92 and read the article by Patrick Russell introducing tabasheer and giving botanical details, including (275), “The bamboo in which the Tabasheer is found is vulgarly called the Female Bamboo, and is distinguished by the largeness of its cavity from the male, employed for spears or lances”. Tabasheer was of interest to Coleridge in its gradual accumulation of silica. It was an example of the chemical relation of vegetable and mineral. This raised the general question of vegetable educts and products, as in 4579, 4814 and nn. 4664 28.23 In pencil. Luther (Table Talk) says:
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They [the “School-Divines”] talk much of the union of the will and understanding, but all is meer fantasie and fondness. The right and true speculation (said Luther) is this: Believ in Christ; do what thou oughtest to do in thy vocation, &c. This is the onely practice in Divinitie. Also, Mystica Theologia Dionysii is a meer fable, and a lie, like to Platoe’s fables: Omnia sunt non ens, et omnia sunt ens; All is somthing, and all is nothing, and so hee leaveth all hanging in frivolous and idle sort (1652) 4. The best annotation on this entry is Coleridge’s own note on Colloquia Mensalia (1652) 4, in CM under Luther. Coleridge’s reading of the Colloquia Mensalia is datable from Oct 1819, when he borrowed Lamb’s copy, until at least 1829, a date in one of the annotations. See 4594 and n above. Coleridge transfers to Schelling the oscillating (Schwebend) Luther attributes to Plato. 4665 28.24 Coleridge’s selection and condensation of the Colloquia Mensalia (1652) 5 is of interest; cf I intended manie times (said Luther) well and thoroughly to search and finde out the Ten Commandments; but when I began at the first words, I am the Lord thy God, there stuck I fast, the verie first word [I] put mee to a non-plus. Therefore, hee that hath but one onely word of God to his Text, and out of that word cannot make a sermon, hee will never bee a good Preacher. I am content and satisfied (said Luther) that I know but a little, what God’s Word is, and do take great heed that I murmure not against such my smal knowledg which God hath given me. I have grounded my preaching upon the literal word; whoso pleaseth may follow mee, hee that will not may chuse…. True it is, the Saints do know God’s Word, and they can speak thereof, but the practise will not follow; therein wee are and remain alwaies scholars. The School-Divines gave a fine comparison touching the same. It is therewith (saie they) as with a Sphere, or round Globe, which, lying on a table, toucheth upon it but onely with one point, whenas, notwithstanding, the whole table supporteth the Globe. N. b. a good emblematic Vignette: On Coleridge’s interest in emblems see 4975 to 4981 and nn. Neologists: See CN III 4401 and n. ψενδο-evangelicals: Those who interpreted and defended orthodoxy by the letter of the Bible. Coleridge frequently distinguishes them from the Paleyan and Grotian rationalizers. True evangelicals for Coleridge were men who, like Wesley, proclaimed a stirring spiritual message. “Table Talk”, German Tafel and English Talk transliterated into Greek with a slip in the last letter. hoc modo: “in this way”. 4666 28.25 The Just liveth by Faith: Heb 10:38; Gal 3:11 var. Probably stimulated by Luther’s Colloquia Mensalia (1652), e.g. 186–207 “Of the Law and the Gospel” and
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208–29 “That onely Faith in Christ justifieth before GOD”. The text was central to Luther’s theology. 4667 28.26 The differences in the two Creation stories in Gen are most fully discussed in CN V N 26 f35v; see CN III 4418 and above 4554 to 4558 and nn. Cf this entry with a letter of c 8 Jan 1821 to L. Neumegen CL V 135. I, and υ 1. 2.3. of IInd C. of G.: Gen I, and Gen 2:1–3, or the first Creation story. Contrary to; for Coleridge’s symbols see App A. II from 4 inclusive: Gen 2:4–25, or the second Creation story. υ. 11, 12 C. I.: Gen 1:11, 12 “And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth, and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, the herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.” υ. 5 of C II: Gen 2:5; actually verses 4 and 5, “These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth.” Jehovah Adonaim: The word used for “God” in the first story is Elohim, in the second Jehovah Elohim. The term Adonai (plural Adonaim) is from the Hebrew adon, “Lord”, which appears rarely in OT and not at all before Gen 14:22. It was a word reserved for human rulers and came into use as a substitute for Jehovah in later Judaic tradition. Coleridge is correct in using the plural form Adonaim for the Elohim of the second story, but incorrect in using the singular Adonai for the Elohim (translated “God”) in the first. elder and ruder document. in AT II 283–8 Eichhorn concluded that the relative ages of the two documents could not be determined. Coleridge’s theory seems to be his own; most Biblical critics of his day dated the second later than the first. 4668 28.27 The entry is apparently a continuation of Coleridge’s speculations on the origins of languages and races; see 4548 and 4866. Metals-könig: “Metal king”, referring to the pure metal residue after smelting. The Latin (and English) term regulus, with its German equivalent, was still current in metallurgy in Coleridge’s time. primary oxidation: Cf 4934 and n. zurück gedrängt…übergewalt der Sch[em]+Japhet: “Ham pressed back because of the stronger affinity, or rather the overpowering of Shem and Japheth”; the German is probably Coleridge’s own. 4669 28.29 The entry is not in Coleridge’s hand, but in a particularly painstaking version of Charles Lamb’s; it is much tidier, and written with a better pen, than Lamb’s own sonnet in 4589. Superficially the hands look like different ones, but literal examination points to Lamb for both. This Thurlow sonnet appeared at the end of Lamb’s essay, “Defence of the Sonnets of Sir Philip Sidney” in the London Magazine (Sept 1823) VIII 251. Thurlow shared Lamb’s enthusiasm for Sidney; see L Works IV 428 and 4810n. It was preceded by Lamb’s introductory note:
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A profusion of verbal dainties, with a disproportionate lack of matter and circumstances, is I think one reason of the coldness with which the public has received the poetry of a nobleman now living; which upon the score of exquisite diction alone, is entitled to something better than neglect. I will venture to copy one of his Sonnets in this place, which for quiet sweetness, and unaffected morality, has scarcely its parallel in our language. Edward Thurlow (2nd baron 1781–1829) had published a volume of Poems in 1813 in which this sonnet appeared. This entry then, and perhaps 4589, if they were copied out for Coleridge on the same visit, probably antedated the London Magazine publication Coleridge naturally would have in print. On the assumption (based on Coleridge’s usual practice of opening a notebook at blank pages for friends to write in it,) that ff36 and 35v were blank when Lamb transcribed the sonnet, an 1820 date is suggested. 4670 28.28 These memoranda on tropical varieties of the acacia may or may not be related in part to Coleridge’s reading of Oken Naturgeschichte. The names are all in Index Kewensis, but not all in Oken. Coleridge’s immediate source is untraced. exudation of the Gum Arabic from the Acacia υera: Oken Botanik ii Naturgeschichte III 828–9 (tr): “A[cacia] υera, nilotica…from Egypt to Senegal; yields gum arabic, which came formerly only from Egypt but which now comes much from Senegal.” Acacia Senegal…: Ibid. (tr): A[cacia] Senegal…in Senegal; from thence to America; a tree which covers the entire coast; exudes 2–3 inch, round, dull white bits of gum, from October to June.” the West…loosed from the I.e. in the Compass of Nature, loosed from the centrality; see 4555 and n. This material is not in Oken. Acacia Arabica…Shittim Wood of Moses: Oken described the Acacia arabica as similar to the nilotica but not as a link to the senegalensis. The shittim wood of e.g. Ex 25:10, 25; 26:16; 27:1 was more probably the acacia seyal, considered inferior to the nilotica and the senegalensis. Shittim was probably a place name in Moab, meaning “the place of the acacias”. On Coleridge’s view of the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch see e.g. 4562 and n. 4671 28.30 Spinosism in all its forms: I.e. pantheism; see 4648, 4662, and nn. See also CN III 3516 on Spinosism and the “Spinosisticbarren” of CN III 4424. For an unfavourable comparison of the Schellingian Spinosists with Spinosa see CN III 4429, 4445. Cf also the letter to J.H. Green dated Sept 1818 CL IV 873–6. εποπτικοις…“mystical”, “epoptic”; on epopsy see e.g. 4521 and n. η νοητικοις: “or rational”, “noetic”. forbidden in the 2nd Commandment: Ex 20:4–6. same Veto…in the first: Ex 20:3. under any image: See 4679 and n. substrate: OED “obsolete”; see 4648. it is an “I”: See 4784 and n. alone the Lord God…personally worship: Deut 6:13 and Matt 4:10. W.without Pers. is=0: Worship without Person equals zero; see 4728 and n.
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f37 Luther, p. 17: Colloquia Mensalia 1652) 17, “That God is sought for, and certainly found in his Word concerning Christ”: If (said Luther) thou wilt be sure and certain of thy Conscience and Salvation, then abstein from speculating and searching to know and to seek God the Lord, aswel what his Essence is, as also his Will, according to thine own sens, reason and carnal cogitations: for without his Word, and his Son Christ, hee will not bee found. But thou must learn to take hold on God by such means as hee is expressed in holie Scriptures, concerning which St Paul saith: For after that, in the Wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believ. For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: but wee preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block, and to the Greeks foolishness: But unto them that are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God, and the wisdom of God. that of the Moravians: For Coleridge on the Moravians see CN III 4169, 4409, and below 4909 f71v and nn. RS Life of Wesley (see below 5240 f27n) I 192–3 describes the beliefs of Count Zinzendorf and Peter Boehler on Christ as the first step in coming to God. that of Em. Swedenborg: E.g. in the “universals of faith” passage in True Christian Religion tr John Clowes (2 vols 1819) I 2–3. Coleridge’s annotated copy of this translation is in the BM: It is a universal of faith that He came into the world to glorify His Humanity, which He assumed in the world; that is, to unite it with the Divinity of which it was begotten (Divino a quo); thus He keepeth hell eternally in order and under obedience. Inasmuch as this could only be effected by means of the temptations wherewith He suffered His Humanity to be assaulted, even to the last and most extreme of all, which was His passion on the cross, therefore He endured that process. These are the universals of faith concerning the Lord. The universal of faith on man’s part, is, that he should believe on the Lord; for by believing on Him, he hath conjunction with Him, and by conjunction, salvation. Coleridge added in the margin: I can neither attach any meaning to these words logically, nor can I find any assertion in the Evangelic or Apostolic writings, by the light of which I might conjecture what the author had in his mind. If begotten be used as essentially diverse from created, how could the offspring be proper Humanity, instead of God? If not, and the Virgin conception were simply miraculous, even as Adam’s Birth was, then Christ was first deified after his Crucifixion, as for aught that appears to the contrary Moses or any other Prophet might have been. At all events it was a Contingency. But
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this is mere Socinianism, i.e. according to Socinus himself, & what is of far more importance, the Redemption becomes a mere work ab extra, like the Redemption of the Israelites from Egypt. 4672 28.31 the whole work: The Logosophic System and Method by S.T.C. as described in the next entry. f57v Mηδεις…αγεωµετρητος εισιτω: See above 4542 and n. neglect of my Mathematical Studies: On a blank leaf in his copy of Boehme Coleridge wrote of his “bitter regret”; see also CN II 2894 and n, and CN III 3455, 4266 and nn for his continuing interest in mathematics. f38 a late period: See CN III 4266 and n; the 1815 date of that entry is confirmed by Coleridge’s description here of himself at that time; he was with the Morgans, in Bristol, fighting his addiction. Coleridge’s blank after Catena of was followed by a new start with another pen. Napier: John Napier (1550–1617), a diverse inquirer after Coleridge’s own heart; he invented inter alia logarithmic tables for ballistic purposes largely out of zeal to defeat the Roman Catholic succession of James VI of Scotland to the throne of England. 4673 28.32 The Logosophic System and Method: The last sentence indicates the 1820 date of this plan, which appears to combine a Logic, projected at least as early as 4 June 1803 (CL II 947), with the work on the Logos announced to friends at various times under various titles from Sept 1814 onwards (CL III 533), and the work proposed in 4645 above. These works will materialise as the Logic (CC) and the Op Max (CC). For related notebook entries see CN III Index I under Coleridge, S.T., MANUSCRIPTS: Logic; PROJECTED WORKS: Logic; Logosophia. organon criticum et heuristicum: A “system of criticism and investigation”. On heuristic in English; see above 4656 and n. de D.M. et H: de Deo, Mundo, et Homine, “concerning God, the World, and Man”. f39 St. John C.I. v: John 1:5. The Greek that follows is from John 1:18; “No man hath seen God at any time, the Son which is in the bosom of the Father.” For the importance of this text in Coleridge’s terminology see below 5256. Organum υerè organum…utillima: “An Organon which is truly an organon: that is, an instrumental Logic, both critical and heuristic, of the greatest use in the pursuit of the natural sciences, whether by observation or by experiment”. Cf a letter to Godwin as early as June 1803 where Coleridge described his logic as “a Σύστηµα of all possible modes of true, probably, & false reasoning, arranged philosophically, i.e. on a strict analysis of those operations & passions of the mind, in which they originate, & by which they act.” (CL II 947). f40 a fellow-inquirer: Chiefly J.H.Green, sometimes James Gillman or C.A.Tulk; in a letter of I April 1818 Coleridge says these “Conversations” were about to begin. CL IV 847. See also CN III 4416, 4440. The Tours in the years 1817–20 were short ones from Highgate into Sussex and Essex, or to Ramsgate, but Coleridge had a sociable liking for composition conceived of as being somehow shared with a companion and on the move; see e.g. an early plan for “Travelling Conversations” (CN I 774) and later, the “Weatherbound Travellers” (4549). 4674 28.33 In pencil.
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Physica: A deliberately vague neuter plural to suggest a comprehensive method or body of knowledge or abstract ideas; on abstraction see 4538 and n. Matter=verb impersonal, υidetur: I.e. Matter may be represented by the impersonal “there seems/it is seen”. Cf SM: LS (CC) 81 n2. Materiale or mater[ial] Substance=existit: I.e. “material” (a neuter adjective used as noun) or material Substance may be represented as an intransitive verb, “it exists”. Body=subsistit: I.e. Body may be represented as subsisting. Ditto, in the phraseology of Nature: I.e. in specific phenomena in Nature as well as in philosophical abstractions concerning matter; see 5448 and n. existit alterius υice: “it exists on account of something else”. M[aterial] S[ubstance]=existit suo jure et suas habens proprietates, at nisi in altero: Material Substance means “it exists in its own right and as having its own properties, but only in something else”. subsis[t] it et sibi et ut Basis alterius, υiz M.S. superinductæ: “it subsists for itself and as a Basis for something else, viz. for superinduced Material Substance”. 4675 28.34 Again an entry towards a Greek grammar. See also 4644, 5135, 5227, 5253, 5340; all are appearing in SWF. 4676 28.35 Obscurity: Coleridge often laughed at his own “obscurity”, e.g. The Friend (CC) I 511n; or defended it, i.e. rational obscurity: e.g. SM: LS (CC) 4 n, 98 and n. “Obscure feelings” he thought inevitable, indeed essential to imaginative processes; see e.g. CN I 383, and a letter of 21 Oct 1801 to RS (CL I 768). Lycophron: See CN III 4189 and n, and CN I Text xxix. Euclid’s 37th Pr[oposition]: Probably 37th Problem is meant, as in the Duke MS (see 4843n): “I think as idle a question as to whether Pythagoras beheld all the properties of the 37th prob: of Euclid when he exclaimed Tacitus…difficult: Because of his epigrammatic brevity and his use of poetic license. 4677 28.36 Following this entry a word [?Former/Firmen] appeared as the first word of a new paragraph on the stub of a leaf (facing f45v) in the notebook when it was photographed in 1937, but the stub was trimmed off or lost in the reconditioning of the notebook in the BM in 1951. There appears to have been no more than one line of writing on the excised leaf. The entry is a continuation of Coleridge’s speculations on Creation and life, with German materials in the background, particularly Schelling. See CN III 4418, 4555. in genere: “as such”. Entelechie: Realization from a form-giving cause. The term is used by Schelling Einleitung 30–6. See below. Causa existendi determinate: “cause of determinate existence”. herein differing from the inanimate…Life of Nature: Schelling (ibid 30) does not make this distinction (tr): “In Nature originally there is nothing to be distinguished; all products are, as it were, dissolved and invisible in the general productivity”. Coleridge counterposed to this Schellingian causa a second and more definite one, the cause of individualized life, seeing two motions where Schelling saw only one. causa communis existentiæ indeterminatæ: “generic cause of indeterminate existence”.
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f44v phænomenal individuality being given to each thing by the position: Schelling argued (ibid 287–90) that the products of nature form an endless, graded series in which life is simply one more product or stage. its position…is predetermined…if not produced, by the Entelechie: In Coleridge’s system each inanimate product is defined by its point, or position, as is each form of life, but for life the position must be defined ahead of time by the entelechie, or motion toward a specific point. Thus Coleridge made use of Schelling’s category, but refined it in his own way. Schein: I.e. “apparent”, “merely phenomenal”. Schelling argued (ibid 31) that each finite product of nature was merely a Scheinproduct. Stones exhibiting branching patterns of minerals were classified as fossils, as were minerals; not having life they were not individuals. Erscheinung as in Chrystallization: Schelling called each discrete point produced by nature an Erscheinung, simply a higher form of the Scheinproduct (ibid 287–8). f45 however endless the grades of descent…in living things: Schelling (ibid 26–31) wrote that nature must be thought of as endless productivity as well as endless evolution. Coleridge objected to these assumptions as contradicting vitalist principles and making the Schellingians mere decorators of Spinoza; see 4662 and n. Cf 4555, of which this note is a logical extension. God, the Word: The actuating principle of light, order, the good, in working on the original Chaos; see 4554, 5297 and nn. even here as Pre-substitute: Coleridge is providing an Anticipation of his own Christology, or philosophic view of the manner in which the incarnation of the Logos provided redemption for man, a position to be more fully developed in CN v. The Logos, as the actualizing principle from God of Life/Light, by incarnation in a single form, becomes the phenomenalization of the generic, perfect Man, in whom individual fallen men may lose their individuality by identification of their individual Reason with it and thus become perfected. In this sense Christ is a substitute, for Coleridge a logical extension of the action of the Logos on the Chaos. See 4998, 5144, 5377. imputed Righteousness…IX Rom: Rom 9 is a discourse on God’s having chosen an elect from both Jew and Gentile according to his will before their birth. The term imputed righteousness is from Rom 4, where Paul speaks of righteousness imputed to Abraham and his children. Coleridge seems to be saying that Romans bears out his view that the redemptive principle of the Logos in nature is active before individualizations occur. Light in its identity or Prothesis: I.e. first step in the re-ordering of the Chaos. For the “accommodation” of naming the Prothesis according to one side of it see CN III 4418. f45v L + Pr: Light+Prothesis. Centrality. these (○s): I.e. the symbol ○ pluralized for metals. The Word is Light—in it is Life: John 1:4. from Light to Light thro’ Life: I.e. from the Light of the original Prothesis through Life, to redemption through the Logos as the incarnation of that principle of Light (the Light of John 1:4). Inoculation: Possibly in the sense by analogy of introducing something into matter in order to produce life.
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4678 28.38 The entry is one of sixteen lines, the whole page f46v; each line is heavily X’ed over with a blunt pen and black ink. The reading of the figures in the date in the last line, April 10, 1820/April 16, 1826 is inconclusive because of the overlay of strokes. April 10 in 1820 was a Monday, as Coleridge says; April 16 was Easter Sunday in 1826. In a letter of this date to Allsop, “Two and three fourths lines are heavily inked out in MS” (CL v 39) at a point where Coleridge was discussing enthusiastically “the relations of an only Sister to her Brothers …”, i.e. Sara to Hartley and Derwent, who were staying in Highgate with him at this time. There is however something odd about the date of that letter (deduced from the postmark 10 April 1820), as in the P.S. “tomorrow” is referred to as a Sunday, which is impossible if the letter was written at one sitting on Monday 10 April. As the notebook was carelessly or very quickly shut after the obliterating, the ink has spread, increasing the blurring and the difficulty of reading the entry. Line 9 began with quotation marks. Line 10 began with “with us”, apparently a reported conversation. In line 16, all but a final word or two is partly legible: Nota bene—Monday [April 10! 16], [?1820!1826]. As April 10 was a Monday in 1820, this may be the preferred reading. April 16 was the anniversary of Coleridge’s arrival in Highgate; it is possible that the entry may have to do with the Gillmans. The hatchingout strokes suggest Mrs Gillman’s rather heavy pen. 4679 28.39 “without form-producing forms” or as Coleridge translates, without potential moulds; in his note on Böhme Coleridge used formæ formificæ; see below. Understanding…no substance: A frequent explanation of the term understanding with Coleridge, from the Latin sub + stans for “[something] standing beneath”. See also 4935, 5418, 5422, AR 6, and the note on MSS in Behmen below. the Bulls that are engendered: See CN I 1620 and n. entia: “entities”. Procrustes Bed: In Greek legend the robber Procrustes cut off or stretched the legs of his victims in order to fit them to his bed. Note MSS, in Behmen, vol. 3, p. 33: A note on Mysterium Magnum: Works III i 33, Chap 8 “Of the Creation of Angels”. Coleridge’s note reads (CM I under Boehme): Without the forms (formas formificae, or potential moulds) of the Understanding the quota supplied by the sense & its organs (= the Senses, the Eye, the Ear, &c) would have no substance: no coherency: without the Sense the forms of the understanding would have reality, no purport. But as our present senses correspond to our present understanding, so do the forms of the Understanding belong to our senses—& have no import except as applied to Objects of sensuous Experience. We say is no sense in them.
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The dating of this entry is confirmed by the conjectural date in CM I under Boehme, of c Nov 1819 for some of Coleridge’s annotations. Certainly the note to which Coleridge referred above preceded this entry, as did the fly-leaf note referred to in 4672. 4680 28.41 The lines by Charles Lamb were published first in the Champion of 6 and 7 May 1820 under the caption In tabulam eximii pictoris B. HAYDONI in quâ Solymaei, adveniente Domino, palmas in υia prosternentes mirà arte depinguntur, and signed “Carlagnulus”. The reading offers in line 6 is a slip for aufers; in line 7 donatque is a slip for donataque in Lamb’s quotation from Horace. Lamb freely translated his poem in the Champion 14 May: On the picture by the outstanding painter, B.Haydon in which the inhabitants of Jerusalem are depicted, with wonderful art, strowing palms at the approach of our Lord.
What rider’s that? and who these myriads bringing Him on his way, with palms, Hosannas singing? Hosanna to Christ! Heaven, Earth shall still be ringing In days of old Old Palma won renown: But Palma’s self must yield the painter’s crown, Haydon to thee: Thy palms put every other down. If Flaccus’ sentence with the truth agree That palms awarded make men plump to be, Friend Horace, Haydon soon shall match in bulk with thee. Painters with poets for the laurel vie; But should the laureate band thy claims deny, Wear thou thine own green palm, Haydon, triumphantly. Var in L Works IV 90–1. 4681 28.42 In pencil, down to Temples. A joke jotted down in the course of conversation, the ink addendum being Coleridge’s later decoration of it? Possibly it came, like the preceding entry and 4589 from Charles Lamb; or like 4682 from John Kenyon. 4682 28.43 In pencil. Mr Kenyon: John Kenyon, poet and philanthropist, was a friend of Poole, and befriended Coleridge in 1814–15 in Somerset. See CL III 540–2, IV 916; the last shows that Kenyon attended some of Coleridge’s lectures in 1819. He sent Coleridge a copy of his Rhymed Plea for Tolerance (1833); it is now in the BM with antagonistic annotations. There is a recorded conversation between Kenyon and Coleridge in the Academy 15 Aug 1885. See also 4681n above. 4683 28.44 Sir Christopher Heydon, Knight: A Defence of Judiciall Astrologie, in Answer to a Treatise Lately Published by Mr. John Chamber (Cambridge 1603). The droll passage on p. 10 reads:
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As for those whome they call Mathematici, I am taught by Iohannes Mercurius Morsshemius to answer, that the solution of this word, dependeth much vpon the Orthographie thereof; sith there is a great difference between Mathematicus with an aspiration, and without an aspiration. For Matematicus without an aspiration is so called of the Greek word µατέυειν, which signifieth to be madde, or vaine. From whence Matematica is held, as it were a madness, and vanitie. And this is that Matematicke profession, which the Emperour forbiddeth. But Mathematicus, as it is written by M.Chamber, with an aspiration, is derived of µανθανεīν which signifieth to lerne, from whence the Mathematicall arts, are called Disciplines. a mathesis: “from mathesis” i.e. “from the Greek word for the process of learning”. µαταιος: “foolish/vain” see also 5206 ƒ17v and n. 4684 28.45 Churches, but no Church: A typical Coleridgian mode of thought, and in this context basic to the thesis of C&S of which see e.g. Chap VII. the Lay Tithe-holders: Coleridge shared the contemporary disquiet about tithes; see LS: (CC) 167, also 213. Messrs Western, Bennet, Sir John Sinclair: After Parliament reconvened 21 April 1820 it was natural to link these three names in the atmosphere of agriculture and general economic crisis. Charles C.Western (1767–1844), M.P. for Essex 1812–32, agriculturalist and advocate of parliamentary reform, John Bennett (1773–1852), M.P. for Wiltshire, was concerned about the national debt and its effect on purchasing power of manufactures and agricultural products, and Sir John Sinclair, variously criticized by Coleridge (see CN III 3849 and n) though no longer in Parliament was a powerful political presence in the agricultural party. See also on the country party 4720. the Borough System: Until the Reform Bill of 1832, the borough system was much as James II had known it but tending to concentrate more power into fewer hands. Agitation to reform it, chiefly to achieve fuller representation of the new commercial and industrial interests, was part of the larger movement for parliamentary and electoral reform. f51 Convocation: Convocation, prorogued in 1717, was not restored permanently until 1852. In C&S (CC) 99–100 Coleridge pointed out that such suppression usually avenges itself. See 5064. Um nicht Kirchen allein…: If this was stimulated by some work in German it has not been found. Tr: To have or come to be one church not simply churches, we lack a central authority, an external centre for our union: a lack that in our relationship with the Catholic church, which is through its constitution closely organized and can move in a mass with the greatest ease, is bound to work out to extreme disadvantage, for the case can arise so easily thereby that in cases of dispute, each of our churches has to do with the entire Catholic or Methodist party, or even (as recently in the case of Lord Sidmouth’s Bill) with the whole variety of the Dissenter-Party—not to speak of the lords of the land and their underlings.
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f51v recently…Lord Sidmouth’s Bill: To which of Addington’s numerous repressive measures Coleridge refers is not clear, but possibly the “Bill for the more effectual prevention and punishment of Blasphemous and Seditious Libels” (December 1819), one of the notorious Six Acts. In late Nov—Dec 1819 both houses of Parliament—and the pages of The Times—were largely occupied with these attempts to bolster a discredited government by suppressing public demonstrations of protest. Coleridge appears to be using the lack of unity in the one church as a prototype of the lack of unity in the country, the Dissenter-Party being those most vociferously critical of the moral depravity of George IV and his ministers. Sidmouth, who introduced and carried through many restrictive measures, was highly unpopular not only with dissenters of the religious sects, but with political dissenters of all stripes, especially those concerned about civil rights. Even Brougham, in the debate on the Seditious Libels Bill “conceived that all the bills lately introduced into the house tended to abridge the liberty of the subject. The present bill however went to abridge the liberty of the press, which he conceived to be the great pillar of the constitution”. (The Times 4 Dec 1819). 4685 28.46 The Piony (now more usually peony) suggests an entry of May—June 1820 in this run of 1820 entries. A personal pathetic play with flowers in extended fantasies is an aspect of Coleridge’s identification with helpless living things; see e.g., CN III 3859 and n, also the McGills MS, quoted in 4926n. 4686 28.47 A coarse cartoon—or a caricature? Venus Plebeia: “Plebeian Venus”. a wreath of Syringa and Dutch Myrtle: Syringa, or Philadelphus coronarius, or “mock orange”, so named originally because its stems were used as pipes, syringes. Myrtle because associated with Venus, and Dutch as a frequent term of abuse in English, the Dutch being reputed (along with the French) to have supplied harlots for English soldiers. Caesaries: Hair, especially as here, pubic hair. ποξ: pox 4687 23.18 St Peter’s assertion: Acts 10:34–5. misinterpreted by the naturalists & Socinians: Coleridge possibly has in mind here Thomas Belsham The New Testament in an Improved Version (1808), (1819) 270n (see CN III 4140n), who in urging this interpretation cited as authorities Dr Henry Owen, Bishop William Newcome, and Theophilus Lindsey. f17v Christianity…perfecter of human nature: See 5244 and n. Elias went before: Matt 11:14 and Luke 1:7 equate John the Baptist with the “Elijah” of Mal 4:5. sweep the Temple clean before the Lord of Glory entered’. Cf Ps 24:7–10. 4688 23.19 In Coleridge’s annotated copy in the BM of Calvin’s Harmonie, in the edition he cited here, his quotation appears on the second page (unnumbered) of “The argument of the Gospell of Jesus Christ, according as it is sette foorth by Matthew Marke, and Luke”; he has modernised the spelling of “Merrye newes”. 4689 23.20 June 30th, 1820…after the “sad news from Oriel”: about the cancellation of Hartley’s fellowship; see below 4691 and n. Strange & fearful Dreams…I believing myself to have departed this Life: Was this a recurrent dream? He dreamt of his own death in 1803 in Edinburgh and late in life (c 1825) recalled it when he had another dream of a similar sort (5360). Coleridge earlier had marvelled at how humanly recognizable though malign were the creatures of his
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dreams (CN III 3322, 4046 and nn); for his most sustained theoretical discussion in the notebooks of dreams, see CN III 4409 and n. How like the Hell of Swedenborg: Swedenborgian hells are repetitively full of malevolent monsters, especially in two works annotated by Coleridge and now in the BM: De coelo et ejus mirabilibus, et de inferno, ex auditis et υisis (1758) and in translation, The True Christian Religion (2 vols 1819). Cf Coleridge’s “Hell in a [?slave/dream] state” in a letter of Oct 1803 to the Beaumonts, quoted in CN III 3542n as slave state; a further look at the very faded passage (written with his gout medicine), makes dream state equally plausible. See also CN III 3474 and n. the terror…is—Life without breathing: In addition to the dream entries cited, cf 4613 and n above. Although personal experience lies behind this remark, a few sentences in Swedenborg may have been in mind also. Cf The image and likeness of God are the two lives breathed into man by God, namely, the life of the will and the life of the understanding; for it is written: Jehovah God breathed into the nostrils of Adam the breath of life, and man became a living soul (Gen. ii 7). These words clearly mean that there was breathed into him the will of good, and the perception of truth, and thus the breath of life…. “The state of integrity, breathed into him by God, is continually breathed into every man; but it is in man, as a recipient; and the man, being a recipient, is an image and likeness of God”. The True Christian Religion (1819) § 48. 4690 23.21 The entry, like 4691, is in unclear pencil, and possibly is not far in date from 4689. Michael Scott (Edward I time): Possibly Coleridge was here gathering materials for his proposed drama (4642) on Scot, although there he puts it later: Time that of Wickliff (i.e. c 1365); Edward I was earlier, 1239–1307; see above 4642n. Zoroaster Disc[iples]: Pliny Natural History XXX ii says magic originated in Persia with Zoroaster and that it is surprising the tradition survived, Zoroaster having had no line of distinguished successors. The earliest editions of Pliny, up to 1593 at least (Natural History XXX ii 5) list his disciples essentially as Coleridge gives them here. Later editions give them as Apuscorus and Zaratus the Medes, Marmarus and Antiphocus of Babylon, and Tarmoendas the Assyrian. Pliny adds that they left nothing but their names. Histaspes [Hystaspes or Hydaspes] and Astrampsyches are more fully documented. The first is mentioned by many writers as having been a Persian king, disciple and patron of Zoroaster; some say he was the father of Darius, some that he was the author of a prophetic book on the end of the world. Astrampsyches is credited with works on dreams; see below 5105 and n. Dardan of Phænicia: Pliny xxx ii 9–10 tells the tale that “Democritus expounded…Dardanus the Phœnician, entering the latter’s tomb to obtain his works and basing his own on their doctrines…. So utterly are they lacking in credibility and decency that those who like the other works of Democritus deny that the magical books are his. But…it is certain that Democritus especially instilled into men’s minds the sweets of magic”. Pliny Natural History (LCL 10 vols 1938–62) tr W.H.S. Jones VIII 285.
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Ephesian Letters: Coleridge wrote first Ephesian Letters and then thought of the Gnostics. Ephesian Letters seems originally to have been a term for six definite but mysterious words (Clement of Alexandria Stromateis V 242) but later was vaguely applied to almost any magic formula, in religious rites. Hugh Farmer in his An Essay on the Demoniacs of the New Testament (1775, 1805) described their use by various sects to test the authenticity of cases of alleged daemonic possession. The Gnostics were particularly associated with magical incantations; Plotinus attacked them for believing that they could control higher powers by words. Besama…regnasti: “O thou who art above all the virtue of the Father, we invoke thee, who art named light and good spirit, since thou hast reigned in the body”. Coleridge was quoting, var, in “Hebrew”, or Syrian, and in Latin translation, a baptismal formula of the Marcosians, a gnostic sect, who were said to use magic in their rites. There are two versions of this; in Irenaeus Adversus omnes haereses I 18 (or 21) and in Nicetas Acominatus (or Choniates) Thesaurus orthodoxae fidei IV 6. Besama (“in the name of”) is in Irenaeus only, but otherwise C appears to be following the (less garbled) text of Nicetas with its Latin translation; both are quoted in notes to editions of Irenaeus. Coleridge here has selected what appears to be a distinctive concept in Gnosticism. Cf the long article on Gnosticism in EB (11th ed 1910–11): “The basis of the Gnostic religion and world-philosophy lies in a decided Oriental dualism. In sharp contrast are opposed the two worlds of the good and of the evil, the divine world and the material world the worlds of light and darkness…. Thus the Gnostic systems make great use of the idea of a fall of the Deity himself; by the fall of the Godhead into the world of matter, this matter previously insensible, is animated into life and activity, and then arise the powers, both partly and wholly hostile, who hold sway over this world.” (Swedenborgianism.): See CN III 3847 where Coleridge caught himself uttering “Hints [that] verge to Swedenborgianism”. See also CN III 4409 § 10 and n. On Coleridge’s general attitude to Swedenborg see CN III 3810n. 4691 23.22 In shaky and uneven pencil, like 4690, except the last sentence. In the first sentence affirms appears to be a slip for affairs. Hartley’s persecuted imprudence at Oxford followed his election to a probationary fellowship in April 1819, his refusal to resign it under pressure in June 1820, and the refusal of the college council in discussions that summer confirmed in October, to renew his fellowship. Coleridge entered into the controversy with the college authorities, feeling there had been injustice, particularly in the mingling of gossip with facts. As late as December 1820 he told H.F.Cary of the effect on him of the “ill-usage” of Hartley, “like all other calamities affecting my body when I had supposed myself & mentally actually was, resigned and tranquil”. CL V 132. George IV (see also 4827) was on the throne from 29 Jan 1820 to 26 June 1830, the outside dates possible for this entry. Probably it was written in pencil close to the two preceding entries. “in my opinion at least”, a favourite qualification. Scrupulists: A term applied in the 17th century to any of several groups who had scruples against or raised difficulties concerning the Church established by law. popular Riots…at present: 1819 was the year of Peterloo and the Six Acts; in February 1820 the Cato Street conspirators were arrested; in April there were strikes and riots in the Glasgow area; in June 1820 Queen Caroline returned to England, creating
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numerous popular demonstrations in her favour throughout the summer, especially during her “trial”, from August to November 1820; see also 4720 and n on the disturbances. 4692 23.23 Metaphys[ics] is Speculation…: Metaphysics is based on Speculation as Physics is on Obserυation. See 4746. Metaphysics and Poesy (4832 f61v) both begin in a creative initiative in the imagination using selected ideas and in the process focus these in symbols. See CN III 4397 and above 4623 and n. See also on science and poesy 4929 f32 and n. Analysts peripat[etic] or epicurean: I.e. the school of the analytical understanding, always criticised by Coleridge for limited mental capacities and attention to mere “facts” and sensations, in his view denigrating the mind itself; see 5144 ff25v–26; also Chaps V, VI BL. Such is Locke’s religion: See the four letters attacking Locke in 1801, in CL I 678–703 and Chap V BL (CC) I 96–8. f19v the aoristus primus…tempus): “the first aorist (or Indefinite, referring to any time)”. The aorist. secundus…præteritum: “The second aorist is the Indefinite referring to past time” Either form of the aorist in Greek can express a timeless general truth. C’s distinction seems idiosyncratic. Delirium or Dreaming: On the distinction see CN I 1770 and n. ποθον desideria: “yearning, wants”; see CN III 3325, 3777, 4335 and nn; cf 4885 and n below. f20 Alogist: See below 4767, 4794 f35v and nn. Cf SM: LS (CC) 99–100 fn 5. Metapothecary: See CN II 2503n. f20v Limbo: See CN III 4073 and n, also for the source of the couplet that follows. The courts of the Sun, where there is “no twilight” 1AM: PW I 195) and the Valley of Vision (4795), where dreams are realized. f21 Faith…is Instinct: Cf Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Ideas or Faith…the Instinct of Man: Reason in the human being as the counterpart of instinct in animals was an early and frequent topic, e.g., in No I The Friend in 1809; see The Friend (CC) II 12. The distinctions here, making it clear that in the creative functioning of Imagination all its powers must cooperate and be in accordance with our whole Nature, that there is a universally subjective and individually collective developement, constitute one of Coleridge’s most important and explicit statements about the psychology of the imagination. f21v can Nature lie: Cf CN III 4378 and n, where the same phrase is used; possibly Coleridge was leafing through an old notebook. Several phrases and themes in the entry suggest Swedenborgian preoccupations with sensuality, dreams, phantoms, and memory, nature the celestial; see spirituality 4689 for a nearby reference to Swedenborg. Cf also on The Imagination (not Fancy…) of Memory (f 19v) and Thus the Objective rise up, as a celestial Birth, in and from the universal subject (f20v) with 4545. 4693 23.24 Two leaves were removed preceding these pages of this entry; they might have yielded a clue as to the source of what now is a fragment without a beginning. C
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himself had forgotten the source when he transcribed what remains of this entry in or after 1825. (BM MS Egerton 2800 f188). See below 5447 f53v and n. 4694 23.25 The passage quoted is from Lucius Apuleius Metamorphoses, or The Golden Ass Bk I § 4. Tr:…You perhaps, that are of gross ears and an obstinate mind, mock and contemn those things which are perchance really the truth; know you not, i’ faith, that those things are accounted untrue by the false opinion of men, which are either seldom heard or rarely seen, or are so high that they pass the capacity of man’s reason? The which is you scan them more narrowly, you shall not only find them evident to the understanding, but even very easy to be brought to pass. Tr W.Adlington (1566) revised by S.Gaselee (LCL 1915). Zoomagnetism: See especially among many entries on Mesmerism 4512 above, 4908 and nn. our late Indian Conjuror: The reference does not help to date the entry, for Indian jugglers and sword-swallowers were “the talk of the town” in 1813, S Letters (Curry) II 67, and as late as July 1821 were the subject of an Ackerman print. One assisted the nation to celebrate the coronation of George IV, judging by advertisements in the Courier. In Kirby’s Wonderful and Eccentric Museum (CN II 2452n) VI 337–43 there is an article on “The Indian Jugglers” with a portrait of a sword-swallower in the act. In his final sentence quoted from Apuleius, Coleridge mis-copied sphatam for spatham, i.e. His Conjuror swallowed “a knight’s sword with a very keen edge” ( A spear?)—“and he devoured a hunting spear with the point downward….” Tr ibid. 4695 23.31 The entry is in pencil; the appearance of the hand associates it with 4690 and 4691 in date. No doubt Coleridge’s reading of biologists, natural historians and anthropologists, particularly Germans such as Blumenbach, Oken, Steffens, Treviranus, Goldfuss and others before scientific terminology and classifications were standardized, encouraged him to attempt his own. 4696 23.32 For Coleridge’s symbols here see App A. The terminology indicates a date later than discussions on related topics in CN III 4420 and above 4536, e.g. nitrogen for the earlier azote (see 4536n); cf also CN III 4420 f20v where metals are “Indecomponible Compounds”, whereas here they are all simple Bodies. f27 Phthoric (Fluoric) Gas?: See 4565 and n on fluorine and for analogies between fluorine and chlorine, and see also Coleridge’s earlier indication that two ‘intermediate’ bodies (chlorine and iodine) had been found, and that their position on the Compass of nature (4555) was probably between E. and South, or Oxygen, and Azote (CN III 4420f20). Fluorine’s chemical analogies with chlorine placed it in the same quadrant. Nitrogen + Oxygen or Chlorine…its Parents: For Coleridge on the tendency of the Naturphilosophen to use humanly analogous (esp sexual) terms see e.g. CN III 4435n, and in this volume 5405 and n. Astringency: Böhme’s word; see 4550 f72v and n, on Appropriative Attraction, or the more modern alternative, the energy of Cohesion; also 4555 f48v 4556, 4929f29 and nn. reific: not in OED where reification and reify are dated for first use 1846 and 1854.
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the Metals…a series of Products…of Carbon &? Nitrogen: Cf CN III 4420 f19v, f20 See also TL 69, the passage quoted in 4536n, which continues “…though in point of fact gold [misprinted “cold”] itself is but a superinduction of the one pole, or, what amounts to the same thing, the subtraction of the other, under the modifications aforedescribed; and therefore are the metals indecomponible, because they are themselves the decompositions of the metallic axis, in all its degrees of longitude and latitude”. On Metals and metallity, and on Ideal C[arbon] and N[itrogen], see 4555 and n; also 5155 and n. But…is the weaker, the subordinate Force: and thes predominant. The Product discerps only the Silex: I.e. Oxygen or chlorine, i.e. East, is the weaker therefore, force, and nitrogen, South ideally, South by S.W.ideally (4555), the predominant. Thus N.E. is the weakest force overall. But/carbpn, North ideally, is N. by N.E. really. It fluorine, is in polar opposition to carbon, and thus, since follows that the product, carbon and silex are analogous, to silex. The Product therefore discerps only the silex. discerp: “now rare”, OED, “to divide forcibly into fragments”. This entry is related to Coleridge’s reading of Steffens; see above 4536 and n for correlations. Steffens (Beyträge I) placed nitrogen (in ammonia), in the same class as potassium, and Davy and Berzelius both considered that the amalgamation of ammonia with mercury and its subsequent reaction with potassium indicated that nitrogen was a compound, and might have a metallic basis. Thus Coleridge was able to rely not only on philosophy but also on direct empirical evidence for his argument here. 4697 29.45 f31 The entry is based on a review article in Ed Reυ XXXIII (May 1820) 431–5 on Franz Bopp Über das Conjugations system der Sanskritsprache in Vergleichung mit jenem der griechischen, lateinischen, persischen und germanischen Sprache (Frankfurt am Mayn 1816). The article conjugates the verbs sebāmi and σέβοµαι, where Bopp does not, an indication that Coleridge was reading the review, not the work itself, referred to at the end of the entry. my theory of the 3 Sons of Noah: See 4548, 4668, 4856. The review article bears out Coleridge’s undeniable Identity of Groundwork in the Teutonic, Greek, and Sanscrit and also the theory that persons in the verbs are expressed by the verb of existence. εω, ειµι, εοµαι, ειµαι: Various and, except the second, hypothetical forms of the Greek for “I am”. 4698 29.46 The name of Odysseus appears in Greek in many forms, including ‘Oλιξεòς, close to the Ulixes or Ulysses of Latin. But Coleridge was trying to find examples of the Greek “οδ” becoming the Latin “ul” or “il”; (“this man”) becomes (“this one”) becomes ullus (“any man”), and ille (“that man”) he suggests, nullus (“no one”). The wh equals F: Cf CN III 3834 and n. Coleridge must have been thinking of Odysseus’s adventure with the Cyclops in the Odyssey (Bk IX) when he called himself (No-man). 4699 29.47 Coleridge gives the proverbial Greek with a colloquial German translation, “Drink or be off”. His metrical observation, however, does not apply to these words, for their metre is not Bacchiac (one short and two long). But the Bacchiac is common in
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Plautus; it is used for Wives’ Gossip in Poenulus (240–57), and for broad Soliloquy in Mercator (335–61), but often also for other purposes. 4700 29.48 Coleridge appears to be writing a few days after the event and is mistaken about dates. Monday was 10 July; the third reading of the Alien Bill passed on Wed 12 July 1820. Aimed directly at the foreign witnesses for the Queen, who at this time was stirring up trouble for George Iv at his coronation (19 July 1820), it allowed the government to expel foreigners suspected of inciting sedition and to prohibit the entry of any such persons. Grant, McIntosh, Scarlett: Charles Grant, Sir James Mackintosh and Sir James Scarlett argued in the Commons that the bill represented a violation of civil liberties unwarranted in peace time, for which there was no precedent since Tudor times, and that to put such power in the hands of Ministers threatened the whole constitution; defenders of civil liberties in the Lords, such as Lord Holland, spoke against it. The argument that the powers were too great for Ministers to abuse was offered by Castlereagh. Canning’s argument, in the debate on the third reading, that because something was not illegal or forbidden it could be ignored, was a mere debating point to Coleridge. The type of logic is given a more humorous twist in 4938 f114, again in objection to Canning’s logic. the Reformers…from Lord Russell…: These all appear in the indexes to this and previous volumes, except Russell, i.e. the first earl, Lord John Russell (1792–1878), who at intervals in 1819, 1822 etc., made strong parliamentary speeches advocating reform; see 5134n. a sober-minded Patriot can whisper to himself— : The seven symbols may signify a seven-letter word. “Treason”? In the privacy of his notebook Coleridge appears to imply that having most of his life been in opposition to the proposed reforms of Parliament [for fear of setting up in its place a revolutionary assembly like the French one, with its consequent despotism], he is now almost ready to think that as Parliament has in any case fallen into unjust, unconstitutional, and unenglish policies, perhaps reform would be both just and expedient. IF it were expedient, it would be JUST: Legislation, in Coleridge’s view, being manmade, not God-given, must be expedient, in the sense of “practical”. Reform of Parliament should, he thought, follow, not precede, the educational betterment of the voting public. Reform legislation, at some points in time, could be a calamity, e.g. in the surging radicalism of 1819–20 (see above 4594 and n), and yet now even a sober-minded Patriot [like himself] may find it a lesser evil than a corrupt government toadying to a licentious monarch. The Alien Bill would prevent the Queen’s witnesses from testifying on her behalf, win her public support, and make Parliament accomplices of the king, thus opening the door to violent demonstrations. 4701 29.49 After Or rather thus—the writing is in finer hand with lighter pen. Was it added later? Council of Trent: Called in 1545 by Pope Paul III to reaffirm the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church while it corrected the abuses prevalent in practice, it lasted until 1564, and was designed chiefly to combat the effects of the Protestant Reformation. 4702 29.50 The entry refers to matters dealt with in Hyman Hurwitz Vindiciae Hebraicae; or a Defence of the Hebrew Scriptures. As a Vehicle of Revealed Religion: Occasioned by the Recent Strictures and Innovations of Mr. J.Bellamy (1820). Hurwitz sent Coleridge an extract from the MS, on which Coleridge commented in a letter of 4
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Jan 1820 to Hurwitz CL V 1–9 esp p 5; c Aug 1820 Coleridge urged Murray to publish Hurwitz’s work and said he had read it and corrected the English and intended to contribute an introductory letter CL V 91–3. Vindiciae was announced in LMLA 10 Feb 1821. The fact that the list of Hebrew words and their translation from the term for dust onwards is in Hurwitz’s hand, suggests that the whole entry may have been jotted down during a conversation with him. The last word means -very, the ad[verb]. (The words appear in Vindicae Hebraicae passim, in relation to dust and ashes on p 39.) all aorist Truths…: On Gen 2:24 Hurwitz says, 52 fn: “For on strict examination it will be found, that whenever the inspired writers wish to express general truths, such as axioms, aphorisms, or facts not relating to definite time, they either express the subject and predicate only, omitting the copula; or, if the proposition requires a verb, such a verb is mostly in the future”. Cf 4692 and 5413 and nn. Coleridge agreed with Hurwitz (51) that v. 24 is not a continuation of Adam’s speech in v. 23 and that Therefore should not be so interpreted. It hardly needs to be said that the footnote is in Coleridge’s hand. Mother-waters was used (as early as 1674 but was coming afresh into the new chemical vocabulary from 1758 onwards) to refer to the solution from which crystals are precipitated; there is thus a sense in which waters (solution) give birth to fixity (crystals). In physiology also, the same principle entered into the debate about the nature of life and its relation to fluids, or organized solids. Hunter, e.g., stressed the “life” of the blood, a view Coleridge agreed with; see 4521 and n. a qua: “from what/whom” (fem); aqua “water”. Coleridge found a Latin punning etymology for Mother-waters, seeing the possibility of a bilingual pun, in the Hebrew word for water, “ma-yom”. υδωρ: “water”. humor: “moisture/fluid” (sometimes umor). udus: “wet/moist”. For Coleridge on the emergence of the Creation from waters, see e.g. 4555 f50v, 5090 and 5092 and nn. 4703 29.51 The entry continues the notes on or conversation with Hurwitz of 4702. The first use of…Shem or Name: Gen 2:19–20. The Hebrew word for name (noun) in all passages of OT is shaim. the Beasts were called before Adam…: Hurwitz 47 wrote that Adam possessed the power of a language “founded on the nature of things. For thus the Scripture tells us…that Adam might see what name was most proper for each individual: and the verse concludes by telling us, that ‘whatever Adam called every living creature is its name.’ “But see Coleridge’s objection in 4770 f46. Oυνοµα: “name”; Coleridge must be taking this Ionic form of as being νοµα, “its name”. Necdo…: Hurwitz 47–8 on Gen 2:20: Hence the divine Historian, after having represented Adam as giving names to * [ha-necdo] as his animals, says…“And to Adam he had not found a help opposite, or rather, as his counterpart; i.e. he had not found a being that was like himself, as was the case amongst other animals.
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* This word occurs both in the Chaldee and in the Arabic. In the former language it signifies to draw, extend, lengthen, etc. The leading signification in the latter is to be conspicuous, evident to the eye, to be in a direct line with the eye of the observer. And in this sense it seems to be used in the Hebrew. With Coleridge’s interest in the subtleties of the Hebrew word (Necdo) cf his awareness of the Counterpart relationship in 5192 and n. 4704 29.52 the precise limits of the several Sciences: See below 4771. On the professions and professional life see also 5414, 5417, Inq Sp § 69. Philosophist or Psilosopher: See CN II 3158, and n; CN III 3244, 3507 and nn. the Learned Class in genere…priυilegiata: the Learned Class in general: “the learned republic: the community of educated men: the chartered universality of those who seek out, watch over, teach and investigate together doctrines sanctioned or meet to be sanctioned by the supreme power.” Coleridge writes in his rôle as free-lance educator of young professional men; see e.g. CN III 3934, and below 5121, 5436; also the Introductory Chapters to his Logic (CC). About ten years later Coleridge introduced in print (but see 5263 and n) the term Clerisy in C&S for the Learned Class in general; see below 4800 and n. 4705 29.53 Except for the last sentence, this entry was used by HNC in TT 1 Sept 1832, omitting “like Cobbett, and Rickman”. The date of the notebook entry (c Jul—Nov 1820) is unrelated to the TT date. Coleridge’s antagonism to Cobbett, (chiefly on the score of coarseness of sensibility) appears in references in the index to each volume of the Notebooks. Rickman: See CN III 3849n, 4038n, 4181n. Swedenborg…his notion of the Human Will: Emanuel Swedenborg De coelo et ejus mirabilibus et inferno, ex auditis et υisis §§ 589–96. Coleridge in his annotated copy commented on Swedenborg’s “equipoise theory”, given under the title of “De æquilibrio inter cœlum et infernum” 240, 265, 266–7. punct[um]indifferentiæ: The “point of indifference” image was used frequently by Coleridge in various contexts; see e.g. 4835 and n. 4706 29.56 Coleridge is attacking three kinds of theologians in this entry: the literalist orthodox, the rationalistic sceptics, and the liberal accommodators. Cf 5240. the other party…: A view held by such widely divergent writers as Eichhorn NT I 633–4 and Thomas Paine in The Age of Reason; see CN III 4401 and n. the juxta-position, of the two Contraries…Clerical Reverend Professors of the Orthodoxy; I.e. the view that the Bible is literally inspired but that “inspiration” does not mean the dictation of every word or exclude local prejudices; Coleridge seems again to be quarrelling with such prolific writers on this subject as Richard Mant and George D’Oyly; see 4793 and n. “ the very words…Amanuenses of the Spirit”: The phrases variatim are common in Evangelical sermons of the day and perhaps Coleridge is himself paraphrasing. The World, which was to be avoided by Christians: 1 John 2:15. the World which could not but hate them: John 15:18. Blessed are ye when all men speak ill of you: Matt 5:11; Lessing interpreted this and other passages as meant only for the Jews of the time; Tertullianus de praescriptionibus VIII: Sämmtliche Schriften XVII 343. Coleridge annotated this page on his copy (BM).
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Mr Wilb[erforce]…Eldon &c. &c.—: On Wilberforce see 4938 and on Eldon 4959 and n. Sidmouth became, in Coleridge’s ironic terms, “the saintly Sycophant of Carleton House”; see 4772, also 4720. 4707 29.57 Mrs Anna Letitia Barbauld’s Hymns in Prose for Children (pub 1781), praised in The Watchman, ran to many editions of which most are unavailable. In the 9th edition of 1801 the passage quoted appears on p 93, but not in any other edition in BM (which holds six editions 1781–1824). meaning one thing and conveying another. The prime sin in Coleridge’s canon; see almost every one of his prose works, e.g. The Friend (CC) I 43–9, 427. On Mrs Barbauld see also CN II Index I and in this volume 4966n. the Lord Mayor’s Show. From 1298 onward, a procession on Lord Mayor’s Day, Nov 9, in which the Lord Mayor of London with the aldermen and other dignitaries paraded to and from Westminster to receive the assent of the Crown to his election. Coleridge was objecting to the theatrical extravagance that accompanied it, making it a travesty on the serious responsibility of public men in government. 4708 29.58 The Object of the Mosaic Legislation a Nation: See 4872, 5269. complete answer to…Warburton’s Fancies in his “Divine Legation of Moses”: Warburton argued that the Mosaic state (4872), being supported by special providence, neither needed nor held a belief in rewards and punishments in an after-life, as did all other ancient nations. Coleridge seems to be arguing that the Mosaic Legislation, as chiefly civil, included such a tenet, which was, however, corrupted as time passed. For Coleridge’s reading of Warburton see CN I 50, CN III 4322, 4325 and nn. 1 and 2nd Chapters of the Wisdom of Solomon: The two chapters assert the immortality of the righteous, and although they do not assert an immortality for the wicked, they suggest that the life-principle, or soul, is immortal. See e.g. 1:13–15 and 2:23. The dating of the Wisdom of Solomon as 200 ante Christum is perhaps loosely following Eichhorn Apok 126, 136–7. Sleep with the forefathers: E.g. Deut 31:16; I Ki 1:21; 2:10; 11:21; 14:20; 15:8; Job 7:21. The Hebrew word is shakeb, “sleep”, and is used interchangeably for ordinary sleep (Gen 28:11; 2 Sam 11:9; Prov 6:9) and death, as in the references above. Jacob’s Pilgrimages & Promises: Gen 28–33 records the wanderings of Jacob after the deception of Esau and the appearances of angels to him in dreams with the promises that the Lord would give him this land. go to Abraham’s Bosom: Luke 16:23; cf verse 22. the Story of the W[itch] of Endor: I Sam 28:1–25. super alia omnia eminent: “eminent above all others”. semi-barous states: Presumably a slip for semi-barbarous states. f38 aliquâ futuritate presuppositâ: “some sort of future state being presupposed”; see also 5377, 5334 and nn. the Soul becomes…perishable Slough: Similar to Warburton Divine Legation of Moses: Works (1765) V 161–4, but not quoted from him. Superstition…Surυiυance: For other uses of this pun on the root meaning of Superstition, see 4605 above, 5274 below. 4709 29.195 This entry went into the notebook earlier than 4711, 4712. The entry is drawn from Jacques Basnage The History of the Jews from Jesus Christ to the Present Time tr Thomas Taylor (1708). Taylor not only translated but also edited and
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rearranged Basnage’s materials; as Coleridge here clearly followed Taylor’s order rather than that of the French original cited in CN III 4252n, references are given to his edition. Misnah collected by Judah the Holy…John the Son of Eliezer: Basnage (Taylor) Bk VI Chap XII “The History of the Jews in the Roman Empire, from Severus’s Reign till the End of the Third Century” 530–1: § X. We have already shewn, that Judah the Saint, who was born the same Day that Akiba died, could not flourish under Antonius, and that he must be placed under Marcus Aurelius…. It has also been reasonably said, that this Collection must have been made later, since Judah the Saint is quoted in it. However we may follow the common Notion, I. Because the Reigns of Marcus Aurelius, Severus and Caracalla left the Jews more at liberty to apply themselves to study. 2. That was the time when the Academy of Tiberias, where Judah the Saint wrote, grew famous…. 3. Lastly, The Consent of all the Jews Ancient and Modern, who owned Judah the Saint for the Author of the Misnah, has always stagger’d me; and ‘tis no wonder, that he himself is quoted in his own Work, because very considerable Additions were made to it after his Death, and his own and his Childrens particular Traditions were inserted, as he had made a Collection of the Decisions of the preceding Doctors. § XIII. We have spoken sufficiently of the Misnah, Jochananq the Head of the Amoraiim made a Commentary to supply in part what was defective in his Master’s Work. This Man was of so extraordinary Beauty, that he was made to stand at the entrance of the Baths, that the Women coming out being struck with his Figure, and retaining his Idea, might have Children as handsome as he. q Or John the Son of Eliezer, Ganz [possibly David Gans (1541–1613) German theologian] calls him John, p. 111 callopædiæ causâ per υires imaginatrices: “with a view to their conceiving beautiful children through the imaging powers”. This is the Thalmud of Jerusalem: Basnage (Taylor) Bk III Chap VI 167: § III. To remedy these disorders, Jochanan, with the assistance of Rab and Samuel, two Disciples of Juda the Saint, wrote a Commentary upon their Master’s Work, which is call’d the Talmud of Jerusalem…. The Targums…once in the Heidelberg Library: Basnage (Taylor) Bk VI Chap XII 533: § XXIV. We will relate in the following Chapter what share they had in Aurelius’ Expedition into Armenia. At present we’ll only observe, that they place Doctor Scesciath at the end of the Third Century. He was blind; but nevertheless became very learned. He had also a Dispute with the Christians, in which he had some reason. …Two works are ascribed to him; one upon the Cabbala, which was an explication of the Splendors
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[Sephiroth] the Manuscript of which was in the Heidelberg Library; the other was a Targum, or a Chaldee Paraphrase upon the Scripture. Hillel II, Grandson of Judah…good old age 210, or 215: Basnage (Taylor) Bk VI Chap XII writing against Bartolocci’s chronology: § XVII. Our more certain Chronology is founded upon the History of the Christian Church. For Hillel II was known by Origen, and he embraced Christianity in the Reign of Constantine…Judah the Saint born in the Year 135, lived Eighty Years, to the Year 210, or 215…. Bartal. [Bartolocci] compared with Georgius Venetus: In the pertinent passage Basnage (Taylor) Bk VI Chap XII § XIV-§ XVIII does not mention Franciscus Georgius Venetus (F.G.Zorgi fl 1500) who was satirised by Donne more than once for his fanciful speculations playing on numbers, his Cabbalism, and outright invention. Basnage (Taylor), making Bartolocci look almost as fanciful, reminded Coleridge of Donne’s treatment of Venetus. Donne had attended…Catalogue of Books: See for a translation John Donne The Courtier’s Library ed Evelyn Mary Simpson (1930) 44: “6. That the Book of Tobit is canonical; in which, following the Rabbis and the more mystical of the Theologians, the hairs of the tail of his Dog are numbered, and from their various backward twists and intertwinings letters are formed which yield wonderful words, by Francis George, a Venetian.” Coleridge’s reference to Donne’s remarks about Georgius Venetus in his “catalogus librorum satyricus”, as Donne called it, proves that Coleridge had access at some time to Donne’s Poems (1650), (1654), (1669) or (1719) in all of which the whimsical Catalogue of Books appeared. On his annotation in 1811 of Lamb’s copy of the 1669 edition, where the Latin prose text appears (398), see CN III 4073n. Venetus and his work are described in Tennemann IX 185–7. R.Nathan Collection: Basnage (Taylor) 535, Bk VI Chap XIII, “The particular State of the Jews at Babylon, from Severus’s Reign to the End of the third Century, with a Catalogue of the Princes of the Captivity” (534–9): § IV. We only find in the Little Chronicle the Names of these pretended Heads of the Captivity, and we know ‘em no other way, excepting Nathan, who came from Babylon to Judea, whilst Simeon the Father of Judah the Saint was Patriarch. This Man is famous among the Jews, not only because he became Father of the House of Judgment at Tiberias, but because he Composed a Collection of Sentences of the Fathers, which were afterwards inserted in the Thalmud of Babylon. Buxtorf has judiciously concluded, that this Author lived in the Year 230…. About the times of Heliogabalus…must have been considerable: Basnage (Taylor) Bk VI describes Syncretist activities under Heliogabalus and Alexander Severus, the latter called the “Arch-Synagogue of Syria” because of his favourable attitude toward the Jews (Chap XII § XX-§XXII 532–3), and under other rulers following, down to Queen
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Zenobia, Jewish wife of Odenat, King of Palmyrene, the Saracen (Chap XIII § XVIII—§ XIX 534–9). 4710 29.196 Not far in date, by the appearance, from the next entry. A grave Problem: On Coleridge’s taste for this macabre sort of pun and word-play see also CN III 4104, and 4073. the anti-septic: The word (unhyphenated) had been used by Priestley in 1774 and once in the Gent Mag before that, but does Coleridge’s hyphen suggest he was inventing it? Or had he noticed it in RS Life of Wesley (1820) I 204? He was reading that about this time (CL V 108). cancrine: Cancrine, i.e. crab-like, able to go backwards. felisity: A pun alluding to the feline habit of burying excrement.
Sit alba…: Be it white, be it black (Unless it’s absurd) What was dung in the fly Lies as turd on turd. 4711 29.194 When this entry was written, 4712 was not on the page (see that n) but 4709 and 4710 were already on f132v, and the first part of 4713. At the foot of f133 therefore Coleridge instructed himself to (turn over one Leaf) in the middle of a word. Consequently this entry may be dated 15 or 18 Sep 1820; see 4713 and 4714 nn. “for in nature is life, and [her] life is the light of f133 men”. Cf John 1.4. For other uses of these signs for opposite to and contrary to, see App A. North…must contain in itself a South: A central principle taking various expression in Coleridge’s thought; see for a poetic example, CN III 4438: “Were there not Light, Darkness would have no name”. Your objection: Whose objection? Hyman Hurwitz? See a letter of 4 Jan 1820 to him [CL V 1–9] in which Coleridge discussed OT doctrines, and matters connected with Hurwitz’s Vindiciae Hebraicae (1820), then being written. See 4702, 4703, 4770 and nn. On the other hand the didactic tone, not frequent in the notebook entries, sounds more like preparation for a lecture or a Thursday evening class, possibly for hypothetical objections. that I do not sufficiently distinguish the historical from the doctrinal: He distinguished but did not divide (The Friend [CC] I 77) the two because he held that Religion consists of a union of historical facts with ideas or spiritual truths, 5421. See also 5241, 5290, 5421 and nn. In applying his polar logic to the Pentateuch, Coleridge was illustrating the way in which history is the embodiment of spiritual ideas, See 5421. For a central application to Genesis I see CN III 4418, also 4554–58, 4562 and nn. equally unsafe to heterogorize and not to allegorize: Heterogorize, a nonce word, was possibly invented for the play on the anglicized Greek prefixes “hetero” and “allo”; it has not found its way into the OED or the language; on the word allegorize see 4900 and n. Coleridge here objects to seeing the historical as separate from its allegorical or representative υalue. I.e. to f131v avoiding 4709 and 4710 already on the pages between.
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f131v “unless above himself He can…Man!” Samuel Daniel, Epistle to the Lady Margaret, Countess of Cumberland: Works (1718) II 354. The quotation was used as a motto in the 1818 The Friend: The Friend (CC) I 100. plusquam-individual: “more than”-individual. (see Statesman’s Manual): SM:LS (CC) 29–32, 73n, 79. Tablet of Cebes: The famous work so entitled, describing a (fictitious) allegorical painting on the life of man, was commonly attributed to Cebes, the Pythagorean. See Coleridge’s annotation on Marcus Aurelius, CN II 2077 and n. Also CM I under Marcus Aurelius Meditations for Coleridge’s annotations on J.Collier’s translation. Vision of Mirza: Addison’s allegory of human life, in The Spectator No 159, in 5380 mentioned with the Tablet of Cebes and also Swedenborg’s De Coelo et Inferno, A Symbol…I define: See CN III 4253. Coleridge’s principal statement about allegory and symbol is in SM App C and E; LS (CC) 79, see also p 30 n 2, n 3. In 5380 Coleridge used allegory and symbol as alternatives, as in common speech, but when attending to these as critical terms the distinction is evidently sharper and significant, allegory coming from the understanding, symbol being a product mainly of the imagination. But he was not always consistent about defining the terms; see CN III 4183, 4253, 4498 and nn, also III 4058 and n. See also the extended treatment in 4831, 4832 and nn, and 5334. teutegorical: OED attributes the coinage to Coleridge in SM:LS (CC) 30 cited above; it was also used in 4832 f61v, and AR 199. It was natural to Coleridge’s sense of opposites to form a word for “saying the same thing” in the context of the allegorical. 4712 29.193 The gibe was jotted in between the end of 29.192 (CN III 4503) and the beginning of 29.194 (4711), which was already on the page; it is therefore later than these, i.e. Sept 1820 or later. Aυστραλ…βιος: “Austral’s life of Wesley”. On “Australis” RS see CN I 172, 349, 987, 1815 and nn, and on his life of Wesley, see also 5240, 5241, 5243. Surgeon Whether J.H.Green had met RS personally is not recorded; possibly they met in June 1820 when Coleridge was hoping to see RS “before your return to the north”. CL V 50. Is Surgeon Green (a term not used elsewhere by Coleridge) a pun on the cutting edge of the remark? By the autumn of 1820 RS and Coleridge—increasingly divided by their views of the economic and political depression of the period—were not on very good terms, in spite of Coleridge’s qualified approval of The Life of Wesley (1820). Transliterated, “hermaphrod [ite/itic]”. Cf Byron’s view of RS as “Mr Facing Both Ways” in The Vision of Judgement (1822). 4713 29.197 This entry follows part of 4711 on the page. There is some error in the date here, or in the day (Friday) in 4714; in Sept 1820 the nearest Fridays were 15 and 22 Sept. In view of 4716 being dated Thursday 21 Sept, the most likely date for this entry is Sept 15. It was first published in Gillmans of Highgate 38–9 where this, and the next entry and 5143 are said to have been transcribed by Mrs Gill-man for Mr Gillman’s projected second volume of his biography of Coleridge. Handiness: In OED but not in this sense; it may or may not be pertinent to notice that in works on animal magnetism the hand and its functions are prominently discussed. a word wanting…to Time what Place is to Space: Cf 4775, 4776.
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co-inherent: A word Coleridge liked doubtless for its organic overtones; see 4644 and n; 4843, 5377; and coinherence in many contexts in addition to these: 4714, 4718, 4846, 4929, 5241, 5290, 5429. to be raised from Being into Existence: Cf 4840 and n. In 5130, knowledge is said to be Being, i.e. not Existence; and Being is Knowledge. Is Coleridge implying that Handiness, the sense of Time, the sense of Relation, either in Place or Time, are all forms of unconscious knowledge? Existence is the externalization or in Coleridge’s terms the outness of Being. Being is the result of a process of becoming, and, as Coleridge says in a magnificent entry (CN III 3593), is “posterior to its [the Soul’s] Existence”. See also among many relevant entries, CN III 3591, 3592. See also 4840 and n. 4714 29.198 AP 296–8, and previously in Gillmans of Highgate (39–40); see the previous note. The numeral before Sept; 1820 is difficult to read; but if the entry followed 4713 by a half an hour the probable date was 15 Sept; see 4713n. Or in view of 4716 being correctly dated Thursday 21 Sept, (as to day and date) the day of the week is wrong here. In that case, the date of both 4713 and this entry would be Monday, 18 Sept 1820. f131v the Poet…wishing to appear as the Poet: See CN III 4388 f148 and n. f131 anschaut: “perceived”; in CN III 3302 he suggested the Saxon “onlook” to translate it, in CN III 3801 he translated Anschauung as intuition, or immediate inspection. Anschauen the verb and Anschauung the noun are recurrent among the Kantians; see in contexts of “perception”, “conception”, “intuition”, “beholding”, CN III 3801, 4449 f30v; 4923 in this volume, also 5431, 5432 and nn. Steffens says, “Die Identität des Denkens und Seyns wird Anschauung genannt”. Grundzüge 5: “The identity of thinking and being is called perception”. the Objectivity consists in the universality of the Subjectiveness: The kind of statement that has made psychoanalysts attentive to Coleridge; notwithstanding his different application of it to religion and poetry. Religion…Historical Fact…the Identity of both: See also 4711 f131v and n. The form of the argument here is reminiscent of Steffens in the first few pages of the Grundzüge just cited, but Steffens wrote of the mutual identification of history and nature, not religion. f131 co-inherence: See 4713n, 4644 and n. Shakespeare, in all things the divine opposite…of the divine Milton’. Cf the better-known statement at the close of Chap XV BL (CC) II 28. the fit…Reader identifies himself: Borrowing from Milton’s “fit though few”: Paradise Lost VII 31. On Coleridge’s own special identification with Hamlet this is one of many statements, from the well-known “I have a smack of Hamlet myself if I may say so” (TT 24 June 1827) to subtler analyses in some of the lectures; see ShC II 192–8, 209– 10, 229, 272–3. See also CN II 3215 on Shakespeare, on Dreams. The marginalia on Hamlet are also full of personal implications; see ShC I 18–40. unified into a Dream: Cf CN III 4409 makes some additions here in respect of the nature of the dream. extra arbitrium: “outside the dictates of custom”. 4715 29.199 On Discourse as opposed to Reason: See CN III 3293, 3801 and n. In CN III 4377 he found a simile for the contrast. opposite,
contrary to: See App A. A new symbol
introduced though
frequent in CN III, reappears in 5290.
“disparate from,” is here
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Inopem me copia fecit: “Abundance has beggared me” from Ovid’s Metamorphoses; see CN I 1383 and n, also CN III 4400 and n. Petrus de Mastricht: In his Theoretico-practica theologia (new ed 2 vols Utrecht 1699) 144. Tr: In God’s intelligence there are two more aspects, diverse according to our way of thinking: the presence of the ideas and the reflexion of these [or their perception] from which the intelligence of God can hardly be more accurately defined than as the most perfect intuition of himself or of his ideas. But without any reception of the ideas or passivity of the intellect, without any composition or division, without any discourse— because those involve imperfection, which must be carefully dissociated from the most perfect. Coleridge omitted seu perceptio, here in square brackets translated. Gassendi: The reference is to Gassendi Animadversiones in decimum librum Diogenis Laertii, qui est de υita moribus placitisque Epicurii (3rd ed 2 vols Lyons 1675) II 56. Gassendi reads: An-non potius Deum intelligentem sic concipere ut…cum v. c. nos multa offusi caligine nihil sincere perspiciamus, sed gradatim unum post aliud et deducendo varia per varias consequutiones cognoscamus; ipse intuitu simplici, et nihil ratiocinatione indigens, intelligat omnia. Thus Coleridge has condensed Gassendi, making his subordinate into main clauses, making “multa” into “many things” instead of “much [darkness]”, and adding “per discursum” and all the underlinings. Tr (of Coleridge’s version): We acquire knowledge of many things gradually, one thing at a time and by deducing various matters through various processes of thought, but he (God) understands everything by simple intuition, having no need of ratiocination by discourse. Coleridge’s addition makes it clear that ratiocinatio is “understanding” not “reason”. Limborch: The correct reference is Lib II Cap VIII § XXXIV. The English translation by William Jones, Compleat System of Divinity (1713) is abridged and does not contain this passage. Tr: “God knows everything by simple intuition through pure and simple intelligence. For God does not, like men, use discursive reasoning: for all discursive reasoning smacks of imperfection”. Leibnitz Nouv[eaux] Ess[ais]sur l’Ent[endement] Humain…Liv. IV. Chap. XVII.: The work, but not this passage, was quoted in the first paragraph of Chap IX BL (CC) I 141. Coleridge recommended it to a Mr Pryce Jr in April 1818. CL IV 851. See also CM I 82 under Anderson (Copy C) & Milton “with three hundred others”: Milton in Paradise Lost V 487–90; see Chap X BL (CC) I 173–4.
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4716 29.200 the inveterate usage of borrowing from the French & Latin only: Did Coleridge initiate—he certainly encouraged—the modern development in favour of Saxon-derived over other-derived words? See e.g., CN III 3302. in sensu morali: “in the moral sense”. f129v Contents…Inhalt, or Inhold: On Coleridge’s liking for German prefixes, see CN II 3160, also “Satyrane’s Letters” III: BL (CC) II 197–8. In the Logic (CC) III he says, “owing to the awkwardness of the plural word ‘contents’ and the ambiguity of the singular ‘content’ we shall henceforward employ the term ‘matter’ as the antithesis of form and as answering to the Inhalt (Inhold of the German)”. nomen generale: “the generic term”. Milton’s Elephants indorsed with towers: Paradise Regained III 329: “Chariots or Elephants endorst with Towers”. 4717 29.201 Mem…alles Bewüsstein durch das Bewüsstein meiner Selbst bedingt sey: It is an odd slip of the pen twice to mis-spell Be-wüsstsein. Probably Coleridge’s own German, but in notebook dialogue with someone—Kant, Schelling, or possibly Heinroth; see 5432. Consciousness and Self-consciousness were to receive increasing attention from Coleridge through the 1820s. In CN III some interesting relevant entries are 3605, 4186; in gradations of consciousness see CN III 3362 and the reference in 3362n. scire truncum arboris…arborem cum se: “be conscious of the trunk of a tree with its branches” as well as “of itself with the tree” or “the tree with itself”? Self-sentience, Self-percipience…conpercipience: The first use of sentience in OED is dated 1839. Percipience is given one example earlier than this one. Conpercipience does not appear in OED. Coleridge in his Op Max (MS) III f140, f142 carried on a similar discussion of consciousness including these fresh-minted terms. 4718 29.202 preferred…intensed…to intended, and intensify to intend: Coleridge does not here deal with the point that intended and intend already were appropriated for other use; cf his apology for using intensify in Chap VII BL (CC) I 127n, cited in OED as the first use. He there said “intensify” sounded “uncouth” to his ear (but Dickens and George Eliot followed him in using it). His intensed (meaning “intensified”), which is classified in OED as “obs,” is a choice reflecting this express distaste. 4719 28.48 f52v Coleridge’s writing in Greek the phrase “Method of Research on Hydrophobia” may be simply casual; or, as it was James Gillman’s subject, did he wish for some reason (or from the addict’s tendency to sporadic secretiveness) to conceal his reflections here? On his interest in hydrophobia see above 4514n. Vorregungen: “antecedent stirrings”. f53 potenziation: Coleridge’s coinage; see above 4645, 4624 and nn. Saliva…as poisonous: Coleridge’s notes on Steffens Beyträge attack Steffens’s ignorance of how poisons act on the sensibility. On 1 75–7 he wrote: Steffens forgot or did not know that the irritants and functions of the Brain & Senses are characteristic of Hydrophoby. The rabious Saliva of the Dog acts on the Sensibility in the Irritable System so intensely as to commence a metamorphosis, the muscles usurping the functions of the Nerves. The Sensibility wrestles with the Irrity to which it ought to be [?subjugate] as its fuel or sustenance as the nerve-knots to the muscles in brainless Insects.
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However, much of the discussion of vegetable and animal poisons that follows derives, though strongly assimilated, from Steffens Beyträge 74–7. Egyptian Gecko: The poisonous saliva of this Egyptian lizard is referred to by travellers but probably Coleridge had the example from K&S (see 4879 foll and nn). “Letter XXIII" there on the “Motions of Insects” refers to the tiny and often tame Gecko walking against gravity, up walls; Coleridge would associate it with the harmless little lizards in which he took pleasure in Malta (CN II 2144, 2177, 2195). K&S (II 325 fn) report, quoting J.H.B.St Pierre, A Voyage to the Mauritius …(1775) that “The Gecko is very frequent at Cairo…that it exhales a very deleterious poison from the lobuli between the toes. He saw two women and a girl at the point of death, merely from eating a cheese on which it had dropped its venom.” From the care with which Coleridge took notes from K&S in N 23 one may fairly assume this as his source here. f53 the Euphorbias: Many species comprising the spurge genus, all of which produce a milky sap. Lettuce Opium: OED quotes A. Duncan M.D. for the term, in 1816; “a substance which I have denominated Lactucarium, or Lettuce Opium”: Memoirs of the Caledonian Horticultural Society (1819) II 312. See also 4624 f20 and n. Lactuca υiridis: “green lettuce/garden lettuce”. affinity to Azote obtained by its animalization: In the ascent of life an affinity to nitrogen appears in poisons produced by animals. as Opium to Carb[on] + Hyd[rogen]—So the Adder,…&c. Poison may be to Azote + Pthoric Gas (Fluoric): I.e. as Opium, a vegetable poison, is to carbon plus hydrogen, so animal poisons (as from the hooded cobra) may be to nitrogen and fluorine. See 4565 and n. f53v two Principles of Classif[ication] First & Highest, the Powers…: See 4541 and n. I…follow Moses: I.e. adopt a natural classification based on the Mosaic cosmogony. Coleridge has been seeking in this N 28 and N 27 to combine a system of powers with Genesis I and here applies the combination to zoology. See the classification scheme in 4724; also on Fish, Insects, Birds. Mammalia, &c. see TL esp 74–84. Cf on the absence of elements in OT, 5434 below. f54 my Plan comprizes Oken’s & Steffens’s: Oken in his Lehrbuch der Naturphilosophie (1809) argued that the “classes” mineral, vegetable, and animal should be arranged according to the principal organs or anatomical systems. As each of them— mineral, vegetable, and animal—began from the one beneath it, all developed parallel to one another, i.e. the organs were: skin (touch), tongue (taste), nose (respiration & smell), ear (hearing), and eyes (sight); the corresponding classes were invertebrates, fishes, reptiles, birds, and mammals, in parallel progression upwards. See below 4813 and n. In his later Zoologie: Lehrbuch der N aturgeschichte V, VI (1815–16) Oken arranged genera and species according to these principles of classification, which led to animals becoming nobler in rank the greater the number of organs liberated or severed from the Grand animal (i.e. the animal kingdom thought of as one animal) and entering into combination. This, although having something remotely in common with Coleridge’s principle of individuation, here and in TL, was too fanciful, and too dependent on a scheme of organization rather than on a concept of development of powers, to be satisfactory to Coleridge. Oken’s “fictions” included the notion that all organic beings were built of protoplasmic cells, and that man, having all five kinds of organs, comprised the whole animal kingdom himself.
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Steffens is much closer to Coleridge’s classification. In his Beyträge, of which Coleridge made considerable use in TL, he uses as his basis the powers of reproduction, irritability, and sensibility, and says that nature seeks the most individual formation. He presents plants and animals as in two juxtaposed columns in nature. He ignores the Mosaic sequence and hence the classification Coleridge adumbrates here (ff53v–54). The principal difference is that Coleridge’s polarity principle enables him to make vitalist sense of e.g. sensibility, and irritability, and thus to propose a dynamic for his classification. See 4724. 4720 28.49 Marietti versus Brown: The Marietti family were Queen Caroline’s bankers in Milan; T.H.Browne was appointed by the Prince Regent in 1818 a member of the “Milan Commission” to investigate her domestic life. A distinguished officer, Browne was accused of suborning evidence. Coleridge seems to imply that the Marietti made calculating use of the Queen’s need of them, defending themselves with Prudential Proverbs. two classes—Honor—Castlereagh Goodness, Piety=Sidmouth: Coleridge, in trying to analyse the public effect of moral turpitude in high places, attacks as elsewhere (5057) the falseness of negative virtue, seen here as of two kinds. Both flattered the King out of self-interest, Castlereagh on the pretence of Honor, Sidmouth by paying lip service to conventional Goodness and Piety (see 4772 and n). They won public esteem in these ways, in spite of the known debaucheries of the King. See also 4803n. In each County…what a tantum non omneity: A majority only just short of all. On Coleridge’s concern at this time about the changing proportions of landed and popular interests, see 4684 and n; also C&S (CC) e.g. 28–9, 63–4. f55 Earl of Newcaster [a slip for Newcastle]: William Cavendish, the first duke (1592–1676), raised numerous armies at his own expense in the Stuart cause, thereby impoverishing himself. 4721 28.50 Down to the end of the first paragraph the entry was written in pencil and traced over in ink in Mrs Gillman’s hand. Eloquence; see also 4637 and n. Prœcipitandus est liber Spiritus: “The free spirit must be swept along/ plunge headlong”. Petronius Satyricon 118; also used in TT 14 May 1833. order and progression: Cf The Friend (CC) 1 449–76, the essays on “Method”, esp 457, 476. 4722 28.51 The entry is largely a translation of Oken’s concluding paragraphs in Part iii of his Zoologie, Sect 2 N aturgeschichte VI 1233–4. Coleridge’s first paragraph is a translation, in Oken’s order, of his remarks on man as part of the whole animal kingdom, except that he enriched Oken’s description of the elephant and the hyena (“der gross müthigste Elephant und die hungerigste Hyäne”), and he inserted the lordliest Lion & the most υenal Jackall. Coleridge’s second paragraph is Oken’s subsequent list of four kinds of men: “Sylvan mensch, Schwarzer,…Satyr mensch…Rother… Faunmensch, Gelber…Panmensch, Weisser….” Oken then asked, “Warum gibt’s keine grüne und blaue Menschen?” (“Why are there no green and blue men?”) This is the last sentence of the work. blue is the negative Pole…. Green, the Synthesis: See 4855, 5290, 5446, 5447, where Coleridge developed his dynamic theory of colours as powers. Cf also TT 24 April 1832. 4723 28.52 In pencil, part traced over in ink by Coleridge himself.
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Stercore fucatus Crocidili: This phrase from Horace, Epode 12.11, is quoted by Oken in his description of the crocodile in his Zoologie Pt III § 2: Naturgeschichte VI 297 (misprinted 397): “[her face] made up with crocodile’s dung”. From some editions of Horace, including LCL, the poem is omitted as indecent. Coleridge’s information in this paragraph may come from the same page of Oken, but the Warane comes on p 315. See 4722 and n. The “The sham saints” Yare…mouthry: References to Viscount Sidmouth, Henry Addington Sidemouthry (see above 4720 and n), who retired from the Home Secretaryship in 1821, and perhaps to a member for Yarmouth? Or do the words describe two kinds of political talkers—the one out of the side of the mouth, the “yare” mouth, of the ready and voluble speaker, with the suggestion in yard of mob eloquence? The Plumage of the…Colibri & Bird of Paradise: Two “Kolibri” are described by Oken, the American hummingbird and the European firecrest (ibid VI 372–5, 433); the “Paradiesvogel” is also discussed (VI 463–4) but not as providing fans for Malays. Coleridge objects (in a MS note on Oken’s p 466) that he is not thorough enough and that Blumenbach is better. An ax he met her os!: in Greek, “anax hemeteros”=“our king”. On os (09) and wordplay on the Latin for face, bone, mouth, see 4749 and n. +Castellum re age: “act the castle indeed”. As this is dog latin for “Castlereagh”, Foreign Secretary, the entry must probably be dated before his death in 1822; see 4720, and for an earlier attack, CN III 4258 and n. Trochilus, by Herodotus, the Charadrius Ægyptius of Mod. Ornithol[ogists]: Herodotus (2.68) writing of the crocodile tells how, “whenever the crocodile comes ashore out of the water and then opens its mouth …the sandpiper goes into its mouth and eats the leeches; the crocodile is pleased by this service and does the Trochilus [sandpiper] no harm”. Tr A.D.Godley (LCL 1920–4). The efts or newts are Coleridge’s addition, no doubt to make his joke about the crocodile as the monstrous “King-Eft”. 4724 28.53 Originally in pencil, the entry was in part retraced in ink and at the date of the retracing a postscript was added on f69, after entry 5173 was written on that page, i.e. the P.S must be dated in 1824. Substantiating the claim made at the end of 4719; see the note there; also, as evidence of Coleridge’s continuing search for classificatory schemes, see 5183, 4775, 4776 and nn. The scheme here was an answer of a kind to Oken’s Introduction and plan in his Naturgeschichte; see also 4813 and n. Coleridge annotated in Green’s copy Vols I (Mineralogie 1813) and v and VI (Zoologie 1815–16). Vols II–IV constituting Pt II of the work (the Botanik 1825–6) are not marked, although Coleridge later used them. A note on the front fly-leaf of Vol I, dated 30 Sept 1820, is closely related to this entry, using some of the same phrases. There Coleridge contrasts with Oken’s “our scheme” (his and Green’s) “in which the substratum modificabile is subsumed in the creative Will, as a transcendent—while the powers der Ideenach are named, each by the generic term that best comprizes its Attributes, and the bodies, that best represent these powers, are named and treated of, as representing this or that power which in each is the Predominant, and not as being the powers.” The fly-leaf note goes on with a discussion of the powers, attractive and
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repulsive, in the bipolar line of the Compass of Nature. On the first 67 pages Coleridge’s notes are frequent, but increasingly negative, and Oken is placed far below Steffens here. Yet in a letter of 8 April 1825 Coleridge referred to Oken’s as “The best and cheapest Natural History in existence” and advocated its translation into English. CL V 422. Clearly he preferred it to Oken’s Naturphilosophie; see 4753n. ens substratum modificabile…: “substratum/substrate which is modifiable” On the Substantive cf 4679, 4739, and 4886. επιθετον modifaciens: “epithet which modifies” For Coleridge on the importance of classification to the advancement of the sciences, see above 4695 and n, and e.g. the essays on method in The Friend (CC) I 466–75. 4725 28.54 In pencil. potestas celata: “hidden power”. the H. of Lord’s his Majesty’s Breech, cocked out of a Window: The series of caricatures on the King’s Bomb was undoubtedly in Coleridge’s mind’s eye here; cf 4748 and n. The country felt that the House of Lords was not only a particularly shameful tool of the King but also the cause of a shocking exposure of the moral decline in English public life. See 4803, 4805 and n. 4726 28.55 Oken in his Zoologie Sect II, Pt III: Naturgeschichte VI 355–650 described as his Class VII the birds (“Ohrthiere—Vögel), paying considerable attention to bird calls; the song of the Loxia curvivostra (fir finch or crossbill) is on p 413. Von Einem: Presumably a Göttingen acquaintance. Many travellers have had similar experiences. Carlyon records Coleridge at Göttingen on the ramparts, discussing the notes of the nightingale, “nowhere heard in greater perfection; and upon which Coleridge did not fail to descant most poetically…” Carlyon I 90. infants imitate sights & modes of Touch by sound…embryo hands; On the importance of touch as the starting-point of the learning process and the process of communication, early understood by Coleridge, see CN I 924; see also 5463 below. 4727 28.56 In pencil, partly retraced in ink by Coleridge. For another reference to his reading a sermon of Swift see CN I 1254 and n. The quotation is from the third paragraph of this sermon, not one of Swift’s best, against sleeping through sermons; it is variously numbered in different editions of the Works. It is No. v in Sermons on Several Subjects: Works (20 vols Dublin 1762), and in its many reprints, No. x. 4728 60.1 The cover or outside leaf has disappeared from this unbound notebook (see N 60 Gen N), taking with it the beginning of this entry and possibly some clue as to the source or impetus for it. Hiatuses are owing to the pages being scuffed and torn at the edges. Adjungit voluptatem—atque utinam Virtutibus semper υel Innocen[tiae] saltem; at nec non et υitiis, eheu!: “It adds pleasure—and oh that it were always to virtue or Innocence at least; but alas it [adds it] to vices too.” definition, not verbal but real: I.e. the essence rather than the form; see 4523, 5143 and 5144 and nn. PERSONALITY: The concept was of basic importance to Coleridge in his struggle to work out a logical and viable theory of the relation of God and man, as becomes more apparent in later entries in CN V. See 5222 for a statement distinguishing between
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personeity and personality and explaining the significance of the latter as applied to God; also 5297 ff21v–22. f1v not incomprehensible from Transcendence, but [?not/yet] comprehensibly absurd: See 4797 f50v. f2 perfected Idealism, such as Fichte’s: As Coleridge mocked at it in a description of Fichte’s “I” from Über den Begriff der Wissenschaftslehre (1798) 49 in a letter of 9 Feb 1801 to DW? CL II 673–4. perfected Realism, such as Spinoza’s: See 4671 and n. infinita cogitatio sine centro: “infinite thought without a centre”. Cf CN III 4351; see also CM I Böhme Aurora I ii 40. Lex generalissima—ordo ordinans—moralitas infinita sine centro: “universal law— ordering order—infinite morality without a centre”. f2v Theriacum multi-compositum: “a multi-compound Cure-all”. juxta-position of the first & second Commandments: Ex 20:3–6; See 4671 and n. f3 If Light & Darkness are co-present in a Being: Cf Coleridge’s discussions of the Light-Darkness, Good-Evil convolutes in CN III 4418, CN IV 4554, 4998 and nn. Causa Causæ: “Cause of Cause”. transcreation: Not in OED, which attributes transcreate to Coleridge in LR IV 166, giving the unaccountable date of 1834; the LR reference is to “Notes on Leighton” which are variously datable from 1819 onwards. as Augustin, the Schoolmen, Leibnitz, Spinoza, teach: St Augustine passim, e.g. City of God XI 9,22: XII 7, closely followed by many Schoolmen, Leibnitz in the Théodicée, and Spinoza in the Ethics. then he created the Darkness: Isa 45:7. ad infinitum, in diabolos Diabolorum per secula seculorum: “to infinity, to devils of Devils into all eternity”. 4729 60.2 On the want of a fourth gender pronoun see CN III 3238, 3399 and nn. The Greek and the Latin quod are the neuter relative pronouns. 4730 60.3 On the necessary reciprocity of true Love, see earlier entries: CN II 2556, III 3729, 4158. f7v Self-insufficiency: Neither of Coleridge’s words here with the self prefix is in OED. f8v Desire…Lust…Love: Distinctions frequently recurrent throughout the notebooks; see e.g. CN I 448, 1822 and nn; II 2495, 2739 and nn, III 3989 and n; and in this volume 4848 and n, 4884, 5076, 5235. confuse the Word and the Thing…Chapeau…Hat: Cf CN III 4237 and n. See CM II under Kluge Magnetismus annotation 33. f10 homo dimidiatus: “half a person”. f11–f11v Desire: See also CN II 2995, 2600; CN III 3284, 3530, 3575, 3746, 3777. f16v Persona duplex, dupliciter una, per intus—susceptionem mutuam: “A double person, doubly one, by mutual intussusception”. See CN in 4435 and n on intussusception. 4731 60.4 On German words without English equivalents see CN iii 4361; also 5392 and nn. Anmuth: Usually “grace”, as in the title of Schiller’s essay, “Anmuth und Würde”. Coleridge put Anmuth with Wahnsinn “among the many untranslatable Words, which (in the innocent sense of “envy”) I envy the Germans. I mean to make a catalogue of them.”
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Marginal note on Schelling’s Darlegung des wahren Verhältnisses der Naturphilosophie zu der υerbesserten Fichte’schen Lehre (Tübingen 1806) 121. 4732 60.5 The name Sir John Seabright was written in above after the entry had exhausted the space on the very small page, so that it appears on the same line as Anmuth of the previous entry though written in a smaller hand. However, a search of Sebright’s not very voluminous writings (unlikely ones on falconry etc.) discovered no interest in Anmuth and examination of the MS suggests, by a vague line arrowing downwards to the first line here, that his name was associated with this entry. As the event proved. 18 Oct. 1820—a motion…on Sir R.Baker…: The reference appears to be to the debate in the House of Commons on Joseph Hume’s motion that Sir Robert Baker, chief magistrate of Bow Street, be brought to the bar of the House, to be questioned regarding Franklin (alias Fletcher) charged with writing and issuing seditious placards. Baker was supposed to have allowed the accused to escape. Identif[ication] of H. of C. with administ [ration] alludes to Hume’s charge that there had been a collusion from the Home Office. Sir John Sebright, M.P. for Hereford, said he could not vote for the motion “which (as we understood him) would be calling on government to commit an act of suicide”. The Times 18 Oct 1820. Coleridge’s final exclamation mark is not beyond doubt in the MS. Whether there or not, the entry itself may be for him another instance of parliamentary logic (see the next entry). Mr. Hume’s motion was obviously an attempt to embarrass Sidmouth and the Home Office—really it was another attempt to unseat the government. After a long debate the motion was withdrawn, which Coleridge saw as yet further evidence of the Commons supporting Sidmouth’s corrupt administration of the Home Office. Hansard Parliamentary Debates N.S. III (Sept–Nov 1820) cols 756–83. 4733 60.6 Possibly suggested by the Commons debate of the previous entry, in which Hume was accused of shifting his ground, from a charge against Sir Robert Baker to a charge of conspiracy in the Home Office, i.e. bringing in a motion for one sort of inquiry and turning it into another. On Coleridge’s distrust of parliamentary logic see, among many jibes, e.g. 4938 and n. 4734 60.7 Elements of Music: On Coleridge’s limited knowledge of music and some discriminating specific tastes, see IS (1979) 211–15. Yet at Christ’s Hospital Coleridge was taught by Robert Hudson, “the immortal Precentor of St Paul’s”. See The Christ’s Hospital Book (1953) 303. This appears to be his first attempt to fit music into philosophical concepts. Yet see CN III 3605 f118. dal corpo del’ suono: “from the body of the sound”. Claggett’s Aeieuton: On Charles Clagget see CN I 161 (g) n. In 1793 he published No I [the only number issued] of Musical Phænomena, which opened with “A description of Clagget’s Aiuton; or Ever-Tuned Organ: which, without Pipes, Glasses, Bells, or Strings, produces Tones sweeter than any other Organ yet invented”. This and other remarkable musical inventions, trumpets, horns etc, were exhibited and “sold at the Musical Museum, Greek St, Soho and by all booksellers”, where perhaps Coleridge had seen them. Possibly his spelling of the name of the instrument suggests he had heard of it but had not seen it written. actus receptivus: “receptive act” analogous to Elect[ricity] in Physicks. Status Virium sive Facultatis alicujus bene se habendi, as in the footnote, may be read, “A State of Well-being of The Powers or of some Faculty”.
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ordo: “Genus. order”. Genus speciale: “the special Genus”. Species Musica: “the Species, Music”. Exponents of our Sensibility as distinguished from mere Sensation: Cf 4540, 5143, 5189 and nn. Plexus Solaris: “the Solar Plexus”. 4735 60.8 J.Bishop is unknown; a Thomas Eggleton is listed as a tailor at 59 Church Lane, Chelsea from 1811 to 1832. Could Mr Bishop, “our Calne Druggist” (letter of [Dec 1815] CL IV 612), have turned up in Chelsea? 4736 60.9 The philosophical or rational analysis in 4734 was broken off—in favour of an attempt in verse? The abortive lines, which look like yet another variation on Coleridge’s theme, “extremes meet”, do not appear in PW. 4737 60.10 Sir W.Joncs’ VIth Diss…. Vol. 1Æ p. 203…: Sir William Jones Dissertations and miscellaneous Pieces relating to the history & antiquities, the arts, sciences and literature of Asia (1793). The passage reads: But I will only detain you with a few remarks on that metaphysical theology which has been professed immemorially by a numerous sect of Persians and Hindus,… Their fundamental tenets are, That nothing exists absolutely but GOD; that the human soul is an emanation from his essence, and, though divided for a time from its heavenly source, will be finally re-united with it; that the highest possible happiness will arise from its re-union; and that the chief good of mankind, in this transitory world, consists in as perfect an union with the Eternal Spirit as the incumbrances of a mortal frame will allow; that, for this purpose, they should break all connection (or taâlluk, as they call it) with extrinsick objects, and pass through life without attachment, as a swimmer in the ocean strikes freely without the impediment of clothes…that, like a reed torn from its native bank, like wax separated from its delicious honey, the soul of man bewails its dis-union with melancholy musick, and sheds burning tears, like the lighted taper, waiting passionately for the moment of its extinction, as a disengagement from earthly trammels, and the means of returning to its Only Beloved. Such in part (for I omit the minuter and more subtile metaphysicks of the Sufis, which are mentioned in The Dabistán) is the wild and enthusiastick religion of the modern Persian poets, especially of the sweet HA’FIZ and the great Maulavi: such is the system of the Védanti philosophers and best lyrick poets of India…. the Berkleian Scheme: See CN I 1842n. Spinosism: See above 4728 and n. f21 Maia: Literally “Veil”; the common Sanskrit word used in Vedanta Hinduism to denote physical reality as illusion. 4738 60.11 Cf the lovely lace-work of those fair fair Elm-trees in 5428 f51v. 4739 22.79 Coleridge’s copy in the BM of Sherlock’s work is annotated on p 69 in language very similar to this entry: “Merciful Heaven! We can frame no idea of that, quod subter jacet, but that it is that quod supra jacet—no notion of that which is
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insusceptible of being represented by the eyes, but that it is id quod ob oculo jacet!—See the blessed fruits of Mr Locke’s Confusion of ιδεα with ειδωλον, of νουµενον with (The italics in the quotation in the entry are Coleridge’s) On idea: (“idea”) with ειδωλον (“image/idol”) see e.g. CN III 4058. Chap V BL (CC) I 96–98 fn; SM:LS (CC) 6911, 100 and n. On νουµενον: (“intelligible idea/law”) with phænomenon (“sensible appearance”) see e.g. Chap IX BL (CC) I 155; CL V 325–6. ejus quod stat subter: “of that which stands under”; see 4935 and n. ab eo…rect[i]us…videtur: “from that which lies above the surface, or more correctly, from the surface which is seen from above”. Sherlock’s next sentence asserts the Lockian position with the positiveness to which Coleridge always objected. See the four letters to Josiah Wedgwood, copies of which went to Thomas Poole, of Feb 1801 (CL II 677–703). objectivitas=quod υidetur mere: “objectivity=what is merely seen, or seems”. quod est et υideri nequit: “what is, and cannot be seen”. pigra iteratio: “idle repetition”. 4740 22.81 Lancelot Wade: The last sentence of Coleridge’s § 6 was written in a small space at the top of f59v above 4742, which was already on the page and may belong to an earlier period; see 4742n. C. exhilartive: For exhilarative. At this date young Wade (see CN III 4179n) was about twenty-two years of age, and as Coleridge suspected, already seriously ill. Coleridge and he appear to have been mutually devoted, nor is it difficult to imagine Coleridge’s sympathetic concern about the son of his friend, a young man in delicate health, interested in theology (see 4750 and n), and suffering also from a common enemy, difficult breathing. In the A.B.C.D. of advice there appear to be the fruits of experience. 4741 22.80 Jeremy Taylor Holy Living (1710) 214–15. Chap IV, “Of Christian Religion”, § IV, “Of Reading or Hearing the Word of God”. Coleridge quoted literatim except for some capital letters and the italics. 4742 22.82 This entry, in ink similar to 4740, is at the top of f59v and appears to have been already on the page when 4740 was written around it. Coleridge’s use of this illustration, putting the zeros before or after the numeral one, appears frequently but never more amusingly than in CL IV 949–50, a letter to Francis Wrangham dated “September 28–1819”, one of the low tides of Coleridge’s fortunes: …Fenner’s half copyrights I likewise purchased, so that I am now free and sole proprietor of my own works, and may adopt as my emblem 0000001—the figure one=myself, the round cyphers, symbols of eternity, a fortiori therefore, of immortality, representing my books, and their market value! But what then? Who knows but that I too may have ;my perihelion of popularity: and that as the comet circumbends its solar focus, the long tail 000000 may whisk round to it’s other end ? and then 1000000!!—But alas! it is ominous that I have been long an heretic respecting the elliptic path of all these eccentric κάρη κοµóωντες ‘Aγαιοί and have strong grounds for preferring the doctrine of the old Stagyrite as Copernicanized by Hevelius to that of Newton and Halley—and I fear that
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the comet=my literary luck, has been moving from the sun in a parabolic line of unreturning Aphelionism, till it shall go out & be no more seen. See also a letter to George Bartley of 16 Feb 1818 in Peter Mann’s article “Two Autograph Letters of S.T.Coleridge” in which Coleridge said, “but tho’ 100=a hundred, 00001 is but an unencumbered one”: RES (Oct 1973) N.S. XXV (1974) 316. 4743 28.40 f47v Quœ enim facilior res…: What is more readily come by than madness of speech and worthlessness of character? The former springs from contempt of others, the latter from contempt of self. For to show little care for one’s own character is selfcontempt, while to attack others with uncouth and savage speech is an insult to those that hear you. For is it not the height of insolence, think you, that a man should deem you to rejoice in hearing abuse of the best of men, and should believe that you do not understand evil and wicked words, or if you do understand them, hold them to be good? What boor, what porter, what taverner is so poor of speech as to curse more eloquently than these folk, if he would consent to assume the professor’s gown? Tr (adapted) H.E.Butler The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura (Oxford 1909), Bk I Chap 7, “at the end”. Of the suitably dated editions in the BM only Apuleius Madaurensis serio castigatus (Amsterdam 1628) has exactly Coleridge’s readings in both passages, with minor variants in punctuation. For the applicability of this passage to Hazlitt, Jeffrey & Co. cf CN II 1850, III 4323 and nn; Coleridge used it in “Two Letters to a Junior Soph, at Cambridge” Blackwood’s X (Oct. 1821) 244. f48 Walking…with W. out near…Newgate: The headings of a conversation, with Wordsworth? He and Coleridge had discussed Richard Payne Knight on Taste, having annotated one and the same copy of Knight’s Analytical Inquiry into the Principles of Taste (1806); see CN II 1963 and n. Mary W wrote in her journal on their London visit, c 10–24 Nov 1820, that they “walked round by Highgate” to see Coleridge. (The dates could be approximate ones for this entry, supported also by the reference below to the Lord Mayor’s Dinner. The references to architecture and Phidias are links with Lamb’s poem to Haydon in 4680, and to the violent public disagreement between Knight and Haydon, in 1816, as to whether the Elgin Marbles, the purchase of which for the nation was then being discussed in a parliamentary committee, were as early as Phidias and as fine as represented. See a review of several pamphlets on the controversy, including Haydon’s, QR XIV (1 Jan 1816). Coleridge was for Phidias and Haydon, and critical of Knight. HCR records that on 20 Nov 1820 he took the Wordsworths to the BM to see the Elgin Marbles but thought WW did not show much enjoyment of them, “but he is a still man when he does enjoy himself and by no means ready to talk of his pleasure except to Miss Wordsworth”. CRBooks I 257. Haydon’s celebrated “Christ’s entry into Jerusalem” in which WW was used for one of the figures, was being successfully exhibited in London at this time.
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Lord’s Mayor’s Dinner: The great annual Guildhall dinner after the Lord Mayor’s Show, held on the second Saturday in November, to which about a thousand distinguished persons were invited. If the entry is of 1820, the dinner would have been the first of George IV’S reign (11 Nov 1820) and no doubt of special extravagance. Ministers: In the Liverpool administration? or Cabinet Ministers generally? See 4684 and n. It may be relevant to notice that in his attack on Payne Knight, Haydon having fiercely discredited Knight’s judgement against the Elgin Marbles says, “And yet Mr Payne Knight is listened to by the Nobility, and referred to by Ministers”. In fact Haydon’s tone is very like that of the Apuleius passage quoted above. Is Coleridge recalling Haydon’s pamphlet, The Judgment of Connoisseurs upon Works of Art (1816) 14? Or was the topic rather the attitude of the ministers to the Queen? HCR records that “the disgraceful end of the disgraceful process against the Queen took place while the Wordsworths were here …Whilst the trial was going on and the issue still uncertain, I met Coleridge. ‘Well, you are a Queenite, I hope, Robinson?’ ‘Indeed I am not’. ‘How is that possible?’ ‘By no means. I am only an anti-Kingite.’ That’s just what I mean’.” CRBooks 1258. Spanish Revolution: Of 1820–21, set aflame by the mutiny in 1820 of troops ordered to cross the Atlantic. hoc quoque genus invenitur…immiscuit &c: “Persons may always be found who prefer to abuse rather than imitate persons better than themselves, and since they cannot be like them, affect to hate them. They do this of course in order to illuminate the obscurity that shrouds their own names by the splendour that falls from mine; if then, I say, one of these undertakers sullies this distinguished audience with the stain of his presence &c.” Apuleius Florida 1.9. Tr ibid (adapted). 4744 29.59 Green gave him: Πρóκλου ∆ιαδóχου… Πλάτωvoς θεολογíαυ βιβλια Procli Successoris Platonici in Platonis theo-logiam libri sex. Ed with Latin tr by Aemilius Portus. With Marinus’s life of Proclus, Pico della Mirandola’s Conclusiones LV secundum Proclum, and Proclus’s Institutio theologica [Elements of Theology] (Hamburg 1618). In 1807–8 Coleridge had made a note “to hunt for Proclus”: See CN III 3276 § 9 and n. what the Germans call a Rat-king: I.e. Rattenkönig: According to J.H. Campe Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache (Braunschweig 1809), “the name for a number of old rats whose tails, as they say, have been tangled together and in this state are fed by their young”. There are similar descriptions in Heinsius, Volksthümliches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache (Hanover 1820) and in Grimm, who uses an example dated 1793–5. my own periods in the FRIEND: In The Friend itself and in annotated copies he makes the same charge against himself. Cf e.g. The Friend (CC) I 20–21, 511n. µαρτυρες δε µοι… From the prefatory life of Proclus by Marinus: …But of this I have a sufficient testimony from those on whom they were bestowed, as well Athenians as Argives, and others of different nations. But he likewise much promoted and increased literary studies, demanding of princes rewards for the preceptors, according to their several deserts. Nor did he undertake this rashly, nor with any interested views, but he compelled them (as he considered it a matter of great moment) to be diligent in their profession, interrogating and discoursing
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with them respecting every particular: for he was a judge sufficiently instructed in the employments of them all. And if he ever found any one negligent in his profession, he sharply reproved him; so that he appeared very vehement and ambitious, because he was both willing and able to give a just determination on every subject; and he was indeed a lover of glory. But this was not a fault in him, as in most, because it alone regarded virtue and goodness. And, perhaps, without an energy of this kind, nothing great and excellent would ever subsist in the human mind. But he was in this respect vehement: this I will not deny. Yet, at the same time, he was gentle; for he was easily pleased, and demonstrated in a moment that his anger was as pliable as wax. For, almost at the same time, he was (as I may say) wholly transported in reprehension, and with a desire of becoming subservient to their interest, and that he might intercede with princes in their names; being moved with a certain natural conjunction of soul, and, as it were, sympathy of grief. Tr Thomas Taylor The Philosophical and Mathematical Commentaries of Proclus…on the first book of Euclid’s Elements (2 vols 1788, 1789, reprinted 1792) I 14–15. Coleridge owned and annotated a copy of the reprint; see CN I 1728 and n, also CN III 3934n. on the first & second page of the last leaf but one of the Life: I.e. fc3v of the folio volume, bound in sixes. A motto for my Work, Assert[ions] of Religion: Coleridge chooses this passage from the end of Bk I Chap I of In Platonis theologiam, (p 2) copied with some care but with some omissions and tentatively correcting a misprint which identifies his copy as one of an issue printed for sale at Frankfurt. Thomas Taylor The Six Books of Proclus on the Theology of Plato (1816) I 3 translates: …for we can no otherwise be able to understand a divine nature than by being perfected through the light of the Gods; nor divulge it to others unless governed by them, and exempt from multiform opinions, and the variety which subsists in words …; where, when arrived, we shall receive all the truth concerning them, and shall obtain the best end of our parturient conceptions of divine concerns, desiring to know something respecting them, inquiring about them of others, and, at the same time, as far as we are able, exploring them ourselves. Assertions of Religion was sometimes called the Opus Maximum, and earlier the Logosophia. See one of Coleridge’s notes on Kant VS (Copy C) IV, back fly-leaf: CM III under Kant. f38v And what follows, i.e. the first § of Cap. II: And thus much by way of preface. But it is necessary that I should unfold the mode of the proposed doctrine, what it is requisite to expect it will be, and define the preparatives which a hearer of it ought to possess; that being properly adapted, he may approach, not to our discourses, but to the
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intellectually elevated and deific philosophy of Plato. For it is proper that convenient aptitudes of auditors should be proposed according to the forms of discourses, just as in the mysteries, those who are skilful in concerns of this kind, previously prepare receptacles for the Gods. Tr ibid I 3–4. the Logical Prolegomena: The work was first thought of as primarily a logical treatise; in the way of Coleridge’s projections it expanded so that the logic became an introductory work. 4745 29.60 Possibly adapted by Coleridge in his description of Thomas Poole in C&S (CC) 92; see n 7. Horace Epistles I ii 54: “Unless the vessel is clean, whatever you pour in it turns sour”. Tr H.R.Fairclough (LCL 1926). 4746 29.61 …συγγραµµάτων: Again the edition of Proclus (3–4) used in 4744, copied carefully, with minor variations: In every part of this work, likewise, we shall prefer the clear, distinct, and simple to the contraries of these. And such things as are delivered through symbols, we shall transfer to a clear doctrine concerning them; but such as are delivered through images, we shall transmit to their exemplars. Such things too as are written in a more affirmative way, we shall examine by causal reasonings; but such as are composed through demonstrations, we shall investigate; and besides this, explain the mode of truth which they contain, and render it known to the readers. And of things enigmatically proposed, we shall elsewhere discover perspicuity, not from foreign hypotheses, but from the most genuine writings… Tr Thomas Taylor I 4. the first extract: I.e. in 4744. part of the §, p. 3, and 4, from ο µεν…to—Σωκρατης: The passage as translated by Taylor reads I 5–6: But the auditor of the proposed dogmas is supposed to be adorned with the moral virtues, and to be one who has bound by the reason of virtue all the illiberal and inharmonious motions of the soul, and harmonised them to the one form of intellectual prudence: for, as Socrates says, it is not lawful for the pure to be touched by the impure. But every vicious man is perfectly impure; and the contrary character is pure. He must likewise have been exercised in all the logical methods, and have contemplated many irreprehensible conceptions about analyses, and many about diversions, the contraries to these, agreeably, as it appears to me, to the exhortation of Parmenides to Socrates. For prior to such a contest in arguments, the knowledge of the divine genera, and of the truth established in them, is difficult and impervious. But in the third place, he must not be unskilled in physics. For he who has been conversant with the muitiform opinions of physiologists, and has after a manner explored in
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images the causes of beings, will more easily advance to the nature of separate and primary essences. An auditor therefore of the present work, as I have said, must not be ignorant of the truth contained in the phenomena, nor unacquainted with the paths of erudition, and the disciplines which they contain; for through these we obtain a more immaterial knowledge of a divine essence. But all these must be bound together in the leader intellect. Being likewise a partaker of the dialectic of Plato, meditating those immaterial energies which are separate from corporeal powers, and desiring to contemplate by intelligence in conjunction with reason [true] beings, our auditor must genuinely apply himself to the interpretation of divine and blessed dogmas, and fill his soul, according to the Oracle, with profound love; since, as Plato somewhere observes, for the apprehension of this theory, a better assistant than love cannot be obtained. He must likewise be exercised in the truth which pervades through all things, and must excite his intelligible eye to real and perfect truth. He must establish himself in a firm, immovable, and safe kind of divine knowledge, and must be persuaded not to admire any thing else, nor even to direct his attention to other things, but must hasten to divine light with an intrepid reasoning energy, and with the power of an unwearied life; and in short, must propose to himself such a kind of energy and rest as it becomes him to possess who intends to be such a coryphaeus as Socrates describes in the Theaetetus. f39 Eµπειρια…dantur. “Empiric knowledge of all those things which are given from without”. the plastic Moulds…pre-existing in the Mind itself: See 4679 and n. See CM I under Athenaeum § 31; also Logic (CC) 73. 4747 24.104 Robert Orme A History of the Military Transactions of the British Nation in Indostan. From the year MDCCXLV (2 vols 1763, 1778, 4th ed 1803) was a standard work on its subject. The entry could have been written, as it is at the top of the page, at almost any time after N. 24 came into use in 1807; it may belong to c 1809–11, when criticism of the British army in India was much in the public mind; see CL IV 189 (to Stuart April 1809), and CN III 4079 f65vn (May 1811). Yet Coleridge frequently recommended politicalhistorical reading to Stuart (e.g. see CN in 4147n) and the nearby entries here, similar in appearance, seem to be datable c 1820. Relations with Stuart were close as late as Apr– May 1826 (CL VI 574–8). 4748 24.103 The order of the paragraphs is dictated by Coleridge’s renumbering of his pages for the purpose of this entry running from back to front in the notebook. From f54, it appears that the last paragraph of this entry was written before the last paragraph of 4750, which is on the lower half of the page. Entry 4747 was earlier than this entry on f59, but 4749 may be an afterthought related to it, squeezed in before the heading, A Simple Question; see 4749n. The text of this entry is confused by the variety in the penmanship suggesting various attempts, insertions, and afterthoughts, as well as by the repaging. The second paragraph
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appears to have been a rewriting of the first. The vertical line through f59 seems to mean that this was deleted here (later to be incorporated in f54v) with the instruction to go to the i.e. f58v. On f59 , written before the entry so that it had to avoid them, is the irrelevant enciphered word (wrongly enciphered) i.e. “gleroceci”, Coleridge. See CN II App C 412– 15. This may have been an experiment in the early use of cipher in this notebook (cf the last word in CN II 3222) but other elements (see f54v below) confirm a later date. Possibly in some moment of stress in Highgate Coleridge was thinking of using the cipher again. The entry, Very Lamb, indeed in density of puns has perhaps more savage political overtones than Charles Lamb ever perpetrated. It appears to belong to 1820 or later, from the disrespectful references to the King (from 29 Jan 1820, George IV); this was not Coleridge’s attitude to George III or William IV; see also 4725. f59 Verulam/Verulamium, the Roman city that became St Albans, was the seat of Francis Bacon, Viscount St Albans, hence the play on Very Lamb/Verulam/Veru (“spit”) and Bacon/Pork. a King on a Close Stool: See f54v below. f58 the trivial name…of topographical Origin: Spit from Spital Fields. The scene of troubles similar to those referred to in 4772 below. rational & featherless Bipeds: Plato Definitions 415 A: “Man is a featherless biped flat-nailed animal, which alone of beings is capable of knowledge by reasoning.” f57v (House-Lamb indeed!): A pun on someone’s name? Or a reference to William Lamb, Whig member of the House of Commons, later 2nd Viscount Melbourne? the new system of Sheep-farms: Specialized sheep-farming in Scotland, increasing c 1807–21, resulted in the notorious “clearances” and the widespread economic hardship entailed for the small tenants who found their farms turned into pasture for sheep and were often brutally forced off. See LS (CC) 210–11. Was there implied a reference to Charles Western (see 4684 and n) who was a prosperous breeder of improved strains of sheep? v
f57 a Bee, which Cf Hamlet III i 56. Is there a reference to the Baconian question? quàm maluisses subire Ferulam: “how you would have preferred to suffer a Beating”. this forgery: Of Y for U. of mutton for Lamb? Bacon for Shakespeare? sheep for men on the farms? culditatious Bee: The adjective is Coleridge’s invention, based on the French cul, “backside” or “bottom”, and digitation, “fingering”. See Bombyx Muscorum in 5220. f56v there being no Members, there can be no such Borough: On the iniquities of the existing borough system see 4684 and n. f56 monophthalmic: OED gives the first date for it as 1857; apparently this is another Coleridge coinage. the final B.: The last letter of Lamb and of Bomb? f55v the renowned Lancashire Maker of mechanized Cork Legs: Thomas Mann of Bradford (Yorks, not Lancs) was granted a patent 20 Jan 1790 to manufacture “an instrument for the purpose of assisting the human body in walking, after the loss of the natural leg by amputation or otherwise, upon principles far superior to any other
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instrument of the kind, both for use and ornament, being capable of performing all the actions of a natural limb in all its joints, namely, knee, ancle, and toes, as well in walking as in sitting down and rising up, with the greatest ease and safety to the wearer, and of being applied both to above and below the knee in such a manner as not to have the appearance of an artificial limb”. Bennet Woodcroft Titles of Patents of Invention, chronologically arranged (1854). Mann’s son, Joshua, and his brother, John, apparently drove a thriving trade in the business especially after Waterloo. The invention of the articulated leg is possibly to be associated also with other names, but the Mann family were the renowned makers, their most famous customer being the Marquis of Anglesea, Lord Uxbridge, who became legendary with the anecdote of his casualness in saying to Wellington at Waterloo, “By God, sir, I’ve lost my leg”, Wellington replying, “By God, sir, so you have!” The insertion is in three parts, held together by footnote signs, one part in mid-page, the next runs up the outer margin of f55v, the third in the gutter of f56 opposite. the medial u…: The Greek name for the letter υ, upsilon, means “slender, slight v”. Cf 4636 and n. vi et armis: “by force of arms”. Cadmus: The legendary Phoenician, founder of Thebes, reputed to be the introducer of the Greek alphabet. f55 Hobbidihoy: Cf Lamb’s “Dissertation upon Roast Pig”; “things between pig and pork”, he wrote “those hobbydehoys”. His essay, originating in a letter of 9 Mar 1822 to Coleridge, appeared in Sept 1822 in the London Magazine. Did this whole entry develop out of some genial evening with Charles Lamb, possibly with a fillip from some speech or news report from the other Lamb. f54v the Close Stool tho’ honored with a living & temporary Lid by one of the fundamental Parts…: The phrasing closely suggests “the King’s Bomb” caricatures of Cruickshank and others, e.g. one published I I Nov 1816, “The Ceremony of Kissing the Badge at the Installation of the Knights of the Bomb”. It referred to an enormous captured French mortar presented in August 1816 to the Prince Regent, on his reviving the Order of the Bath. The cartoon shows the Regent sitting (back view) on a Grand Mortar shaped like an apothecary’s mortar upside down to form a commode. Until 1819 or later “the Regent’s Bomb” was still a common allusion, partly because the mortar itself was still on the Horse Guards Parade. As might be expected, Peter Pindar in The R—t’s Bomb! or R—l Exhibition is full of references to “going to pot”, “the privy purse”, and the like. The King is thus clearly George IV, against whom feeling ran high on his accession in 1820. Eschines & Demost[henes] de Coronâ: Demosthenes in 330 B.C. made his famous speech “On the Crown”, in reply to Aeschines, who had attacked a proposal in the Athenian assembly that Demosthenes for his devotion to the state should be presented with a golden crown. 4749 24.105 Written small, with a fine quill, squeezed in on ƒ59 above the cancelled draft, beginning and opposite the paragraph headed Modern Oratory, 4748; possibly it was an afterthought to that entry, but there is no indication of a point at which it was to be inserted. It shares the satirical tone of 4748.
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Finding a pair of Latin words that sound alike in the nominative and unfortunately also the accusative cases, Coleridge uses them to pun against political windbags. See another such play on os in 4723 and n, with an additional political twist at the expense of Lord Sidmouth. 4750 24.101 f49v Lancelot Wade: The likely date here is Nov 1820 when Wade went to Highgate to consult Gillman about his case; see 4740 and n. See also CN III 4179, 4210, 4462 and nn; in the last there is also reference to the Pædo-baptists (f50), a subject discussed with young Wade more than once. Much of this reappeared in AR 356 foll. psilosophizing: See CN III 3244 and n. f50 pro tempore isto et quo ad disputantes ipsos: “for that time and as regards circumstances and positions of the disputants themselves”. f50v Robinson (Hist. of Bapt.): Coleridge annotated Vols III and IV of Robinson’s Miscellaneous Works (Harlow 1807) printed by Benjamin Flower (who printed Coleridge’s first poem) in Cambridge, where Robinson was pastor of the Baptist Church for thirty years (1761–91); Coleridge had probably long known of him. He shared Coleridge’s early opposition to infant baptism (see CN I 813, 1516 and nn). In Chaps XXII and XXIII of his History of Baptism (1790) he traced the rise of infant baptism in the third century under Cyprian (bp of Carthage 3rd century A.D.) as a device instituted against church doctrine for protecting children in Africa who otherwise might be bought, sold, stolen, or burned. He wrote, “nothing would be easier than to demonstrate that baptism went down by degrees, and did not arrive at newborn infants, except in Africa, where it was intended to save their lives, till the fifth century”. Robinson History 200. The Pelagians, not believing in original sin, rejected infant baptism. Augustine opposed this view and enjoined infant baptism on the grounds that if children died in Adam’s sin, they would be damned. Robinson History 209–17. See AR 361 fn. f51 confuted by diverse Pædo-baptist Divines: Coleridge disagreed with Robinson’s historical account of infant baptism but assented, with Lancelot Wade, to the proposition that “infant baptism subverts the great principle of the Christian religion, which is, that men are made Christians, and not born so” (199). Pædo-baptist Divines who traced the rite to Apostolic times included Thomas Belsham, Unitarian divine, in his A Plea for Infant Baptism (1817), “written in defence of an ancient rite”; and William Wall The History of Infant Baptism (1705), which Coleridge annotated and which he called “a very sensible little tract”, though it failed to convince him of any decisive proofs of infant baptism in Apostolic times. (AR 372.) Coleridge frequently took issue with Belsham’s voluminous writings. See f53 below. the ceremony of Baptism: A few years later Coleridge either turned to or remembered Jeremy Taylor’s Office for Baptism; see 5360n. same spirit should be growing…all perfection in Christ Jesus: A conflation of Phil 2:5 and Eph 4:12–13. f51v WORD made flesh…co-eternal with God: John 1:1–2, 14. Coleridge repeated the “with God” of John 1:1 in Greek. Son of the Living God: John 6:69. My Father and I will…dwell in you: A recollection of John 14:23. f52 his opportunities…will be taken into account: Coleridge probably had Ps 87:4–6 in mind, especially verse 6.
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same mind as was in Jesus: Phil 2:5. f52v On Coleridge’s refusal to call Unitarianism Christianity see e.g. 4857 and n; also 4966n; BL Chap XXIV Chap XXIV BL (CC) II 245–6; TT 4 April 1832. Written vertically up the outside edge of f52v. The leap from f53 to f54 was made because f53v was already filled with 24.102, CN III 4478. 4751 24.106 Part in AP 235, considerably edited. This goes back to Davy’s first public lectures in the Royal Institution in 1802 (CN I 1098 f28v yet in a letter of 9 Feb 1808 to RS, of Cottle Coleridge said he wished “to review his Psalms: which I like very much”. CL in 59. Cottle’s New Version of the Psalms of David (1801, 2nd ed 1805) had no didactic additions. They were metrical, not literal, versions of two hundred and thirtythree psalms, the object being, Cottle said in the Preface, “to catch the spirit rather than adhere to the letter”. The character of the work is best indicated by saying that Psalm 23 retained no single image of the King James version. Was there projected in conversation a third edition “with morals…added to each”? 4752 24.107 See CN II 3009 and n where this address appeared earlier in this notebook. This entry could simply be a repetition at that time. On the other hand, on 3 July 1820 Coleridge thought of asking the Cromptons in Liverpool to look out for Hartley, who, he feared, after the Oriel debacle, might have madcap ideas of taking the Oxford advice to go to Canada, “in no dissimilar mood or chaos…which possessed his unhappy father at an earlier age during the month that ended in the Army-freak”. CL V 84. 4753 24.108 This entry is in pencil, inside the back cover; at a guess, it was written after a drawing of some kind of cylindrical device was already there, which probably has no relation to this entry; it appears to have been drawn before either 4753 or 4754 were written, though the similarity in ink to 4754 may associate it visually. P. 128, 129 of Oken’s Lehrbuch der Naturphilosophie: See CN III 4427–4429, 4449 and nn. In a marginal note on these pages in his copy Coleridge referred to the chapter as “interesting …even in spite of the swaggering bull-frog assertional ‘You be damned’ and ‘blast my eyes, if it an’t’ style, in some degree at least if not in kind) exclusively characteristic of this Writer as to be well implied in the term OKENISM.—It would not be below Heinrich Steffens to answer it”. The two pages read: Tr: § 426 Crystallography has also been used as the principle of classification in mineralogy, but with the same error as in chemistry. Just as chemistry, with incredible stubbornness, has broken down even the most similar precious stones, and even reduced the diamond to anthracite coal, not to mention the more indeterminate tourmalines or garnets, etc., so the mineralogy of crystals, if it wanted to be consistent, would have to make connections between the most contradictory things and separate the most similar. Fortunately it has not yet ventured to be as consistent as chemical mineralogy, and so some order has still remained in the crystallographic system. This is because its designer is more than a mere breaker of crystals. Any science designed by a man who is merely onesided is bound to deteriorate and turn ridiculous. That is why German
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mineralogy is the most many-sided of sciences, because its creator is skilled in the application of more than one scientific criterion. § 427 It is said, and with reason, or so it is thought, that the Inner takes its definition from the Outer, and that if there are congruent constituent parts, then there are also congruent forms, and if there are the latter, then there are also the former. But this is a false proposition that has caused untold damage, especially in natural history. In Mineralogy it has been clearly observed that the form of a crystal is not congruent with its constituent parts, and nevertheless it was believed that this congruency could be found in the forms of the core. But just as the outer form is not essential (the form really without idea, regardless of its genesis), so the core without idea is not essential, and it is often given an arbitrary form by the hidden movement of the blades. Experience has taught us. Science proves it. Werner: Abraham Gottlob Werner (1750–1817) is credited by Oken with being the founder of scientific geognosy; he was much quoted in contemporary geological controversies. Whether or not Coleridge had read his Von den äusserlichen Kennzeichen der Fossilien (1774), in which, as the title suggests, the external characteristics of fossils are the main subject from the first page onwards, is not clear. Of the four kinds of characters attributed by Werner to fossils, the external ones (perceived through the senses) as differentiated from internal (chemical), physical (related to other substances), and empirical (related to the place where it is formed), are alone considered adequate to the discrimination and classification of fossils. Coleridge’s reference to Steffens’s defence of Werner’s view could be to his Beyträge I 23 where Steffens referred to the Wernerian geognosy as grounded on observation and approved his theory of the chemical action in the formation of chalk deposits, and where a few pages later he unequivocally supported Werner’s conclusions on the external characteristics of fossils. “Er hatte ohne allen Zweifel Recht”, Steffens said (I 49): “He was without any doubt right.” 4754 24.109 The best elucidation is TT 16 Aug 1833: Horne Tooke was once holding forth on language, when, turning to me, he asked me if I knew what the meaning of the final ive was in English words. I said I thought I could tell what he Horne Tooke himself, thought. “Why, what?” said he. “Vis” I replied; and he acknowledged I had guessed right. I told him, however, that I could not agree with him; but believed that the final ive came from ick—vicus, ; the root denoting collectivity, and that it was opposed to the final ing, which signifies separation, particularity, and individual property, from ingle, a hearth, or one man’s place or seat: , vicus, denoted an aggregation of ingles. The alteration of the c and k of the root into the υ was evidently the work of the digammate power, and hence we find the icus and ivus indifferently as finals in Latin. The precise difference of the etymologies is apparent in these phrases:—The lamb is sportive; that is, has a nature or habit of sporting: the lamb is sporting; that is, the animal is now performing a
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sport. Horne Tooke upon this said nothing to my etymology; but I believe he found that he could not make a fool of me, as he did of Godwin and some other of his butts. For Horne Tooke on-ic and-ive, see Eπεα πτερóεντα: πτερóεντα: Or, the Diversions of Purley (1805) II 494–501. For C’s reaction to Horne Tooke on language see e.g. CN III Index I and CL V 49I. On Coleridge’s dining with Tooke, see CN I 965, 966nn, though these throw no light on the dating here. See also on Vicus, Civis, 5307 and n; on the digamma 4765 f43 and n. 4755 61.39 One of Coleridge’s contributions to nineteenth-century thought was the assertion that a belief in the literal infallibility of the Bible was neither mandatory nor essential to Christian faith. The fullest exposition of his views is in CIS, but scores of notebook entries lend weight to that posthumously published work; see e.g. 4603 which follows a series of Luther entries. Cui bono: “To whose advantage”. Used in CN III 3966. Cf SM:LS (CC) 21 and n. Luther…doubting the divine origin of the Apocalypse: Referring appareritly to Luther’s Preface to the Revelation of St John: quoted in C&S (CC) 139n; see also ibid 222–4. Coleridge’s marginalia on Luther’s Colloquia Mensalia deal with the subject; see CM II under Luther, also for more general remarks, 4594, 4595. 4756 61.40 T.Poole: The entry could have been an early one in this notebook at the top of a page, but Poole’s name does not necessarily suggest a West Country (and therefore pre 1808) entry. In Sept 1813 Poole and Coleridge met in London (Chambers 259), in July 1817, and probably in June 1820 at Highgate (CL III 1070, v 54). June 1820 seems likely, or later in 1820 with the remaining entries in this notebook. 4757 61.41 Jaw—provincially & in old Spelling, Jow: I.e. in Devonshire speech as Coleridge knew it? And in late middle English. Coleridge derives it from the Latin jugum “a yoke”, the English w or gh being the same as German ch and the Latin g.Jough is not found in etymological dictionaries. Cf the interest in changing sounds in 4765, 5253 and nn and in others of the Greek grammars being brought together in SWF. 4758 61.42 Corals, Polypi and In fusories: See 4633, 4813, 4765, 4814 and also 5247 and n for other instances of Coleridge’s attention to the emergence of the earliest animal life and the margins between vegetable and animal. In this entry he could be making his own summary deduction from Georg August Goldfuss’s Handbuch der Zoologie (2 vols Nuremberg 1820); his annotated copy, which appears to have Green’s name and an illegible date or catalogue number on the title-page, is in VCL. In Part I, Goldfuss classified the lowest forms of animal life from the protozoa upwards, in the first four orders of which he referred—in some two hundred pages—to the reproductive processes of all the forms of animal life Coleridge has mentioned here, though Goldfuss made no such terse statement. 4759 61.43 From the appearance, of the same date as foregoing. Coleridge’s reference to Campbell’s Travels…1812, p. 14 establishes that his America was a slip for Africa. He was reading John Campbell Travels in South Africa undertaken at the request of the Missionary Society (3rd ed 1815); the 1812 refers to the date of the journey. In all the accounts Mr Onkruydt is spelled Oncruydt.
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Coleridge is giving his own paraphrase of the episode, not a verbatim transcription. For his concern about the meaning and use of the word made, see a letter to C.A. Tulk Sept 1817 CL IV 767–76. 4760 61.44 not probable that Elia and I should differ…on this subject: Lamb first used the pseudonym Elia in the London Magazine for Aug 1820, to sign “Recollections of the South Sea House”. Coleridge may have heard him use this nom de plume earlier, but there is no evidence, and Lamb’s remarks about it suggest a spontaneous decision at the moment of writing that essay; he discussed the name in his next contribution, “Oxford in the Vacation”, in the October 1820 issue. This subject was probably their old school on which Lamb’s remarks appeared in his essay “Christ’s Hospital Five and Thirty Years Ago” in the London Magazine for Dec 1820, a thinly disguised account rather of Coleridge’s experiences than his own. Perhaps one of the even more lively episodes Coleridge would have liked to see included is referred to in 4938. 4761 61.45 In appearance like 4760, and therefore probably close to it in date. Coleridge appears to have omitted the verb—after Tri-unity, something like “should be stated”. 4762 61.46 The pages are blank after this incomplete entry, except for the verso of the last leaf, in effect the back cover, on which see N 61 Gen N. 4763 29.62 With this plan or prospectus for a text book on logic cf CN III 3934, 4265, 4358 and nn; and in this volume 4656, 4673, 5148, 5282, 5283 and nn. See below some references to such of this material as went into his Logic (CC) e.g. 4764, 5133 and n. “on words and reasoning”. Both and λóγος mean “word”; cf CN III 4223, and see also 4771 f47v below, the Rhematic/Metagrammatic, the Doctrine of arranging words…perspicuously. To Coleridge with its similarity to flow (cf 4832 f60 and n), meant “articulate sounds” as opposed to λóγοι, “meaningful words”, partaking of the communicative intelligence. Logic (CC) 89, 96, 97; cf also 4765 f42v 2v below. On λóγος see the whole Introductory Chap II to Logic (CC) 24–47. The second meaning of Λóγος as the Word of God that was in the beginning the source of all words (Logic—CC—118– 20) is discussed in many entries in this volume; see esp 4554, 5162, 5297, 5338 and nn. Eπεα ζωοντα: “living words”; see CN III 4237 and n. the Pulpit, the Senate, or the Bar: I.e. members of the “clerisy”, as he was to denominate them in C&S (CC) 46–7. See 4704n. a brief history of these Sciences…: There is such a fragment appearing in SWF, the Bristol MS (VCL BT 16); see also Logic (CC) 287–9. f40 Lambert’s Organon: The reference is to J.H.Lambert Neues Organon oder Gedanken über die Erforschung und Bezeichnung des Wahren und dessen Unterscheidung υom Irrthum und Schein (2 vols Leipzig 1764). For his other logical works see the next entry on Lambert’s Letter to Kant. pro re natâ: “according to the present circumstances”. f40v progress in every science is to simplify:—by finding the law governing or common to the multiplicity; cf The Friend (CC) I 466–71. magis, tolerabiles quia breviores: “more. endurable because briefer”.
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Nosology or the classification of diseases was in Bailey’s dictionary; though in Coleridge’s day, with the development of physiology, the word took on a new connotation; it was used inter alios by Abernethy and Davy. f41 Spurzheim’s 36 Faculties: On Spurzheim see CN III 4269, 4355 and nn. Coleridge is remembering Gall and Spurzheim’s Physiognomical System (2nd ed 1815) in which the frontispiece, also Plate I, show thirty-three areas of the skull and of the brain; in his “Recapitulation” of the “Physiognomical Part” III, Spurzheim declares “There are probably thirty-three special faculties” (p 397). Plate I Fig 2 seems to indicate fifty-six possible convolutions of the brain, Plate II Fig 2 runs to eightyeight. In his Logic (CC) 251–2 Coleridge used this (but did not refer by name to Spurzheim) as an example of “the confusion between distinct inherence and dividuous or separate subsistency…” In singulis υerbis: “as to individual words”. 4764 29.63 f41 The Syllogism…, sometimes appeared to Coleridge (as to Bacon) a limited, or even a dangerous tool (cf 4775, 5133, 5137, 5282) not as here the universal form of all mental discoursing, “whether implicitly or explicitly” and therefore of all right and wrong conclusion. Bacon indeed pointed out a part of the means: Cf The Friend (CC) I 488–93. Cf on Bacon’s contribution to scientific method of a place for ars inveniendi CN III 3825 and n. f41v Coleridge renumbered this page as “11” in the Logic sequence; see 4771n. Axioms themselves do not supersede Principles: In the Critique of Pure Reason (in the Transcendental Analytic Div I Bk II Chap 11) Kant, in establishing what he calls the “Principles of Pure Understanding”, (§ 3) begins by discussing “Axioms der Anschauung” (translated “Axioms of Intuition” by Kemp Smith, by others sometimes as “Axioms of Perception”). Coleridge’s example of an axiom, Two straight lines cannot inclose a space, is used by Kant in demonstrating that “all intuitions are extensive magnitudes”, and that the axioms of geometry express these principles of sensuous intuition/perception a priori of all objects. See tr N.Kemp Smith (1950) 197–9. Intuitio Co-existentium: “the Intuition of Co-existents”. Man is equipped, according to Kant, with pure forms of knowledge, universals, by the light of which all experiences are made possible, and also the objects of experience are thus made possible, since all empirical objects are mental representations. to Kant we owe…the ∆ιοτι…in addition to the Oτι εστι: I.e. “the why”, in addition to the “that it is”, the demonstration that geometry is in fact demonstrative, in fact selfdemonstrative, ideal, not based analytically on experience; its judgements, like all mathematical judgements, are necessary, synthetic, and a priori judgements of the “pure reason”. Coleridge is discussing the basic question in the Critique of Pure Reason, where Kant assumes necessary universals (e.g. of geometry) as self-evi-dent, and the necessary condition of knowledge. More particularly, Coleridge may be thinking of Kant’s Introduction § 5 or e.g. the exposition of the concept of Space in the Transcendental Aesthetic I. It was Kant the logician whom Coleridge held in highest regard, especially in the Critique of Pure Reason, not Kant the moralist or psychologist. Lambert’s first Letter to Kant: “Kants und Lamberts gelehrter Brief-wechsel” was annotated by Coleridge in VS II 567–606, where in the margins he raised the same objection, in CM under Kant: VS (Copy C). Condillac: See 4771 and n. Notions or Thoughts (Begriffe): I.e. “concepts”.
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compositite: Not in OED, composititious is “obs. rare”. Omne rationale…immortalis: “All that is rational is immortal. Socrates is rational. Therefore Socrates is immortal.” f42 Grammar…Rhetoric…Logic: See also 4644, 4771 f41v, and the next entry with the references to Coleridge’s Logic in the n. 4765 29.64 The table of signs (see App A) which Coleridge himself had difficulty in remembering, was crowded in as a postscript in a space between the end of 4764 and the beginning of this entry. Cf CN III 4241, 4403 and nn. The entry was used in Logic (CC) 87–92. f42 De principio…Identitatis’. “Concerning the principle of contradiction, also the principle of Identity”. Kant treated the problem in the Critique of Pure Reason a few pages earlier than the Axioms of Intuition discussed in 4764. Here—underlined by his use of the Latin phrases—Coleridge dealt with a problem of traditional logic as a question of semantics. Syllogy: Not in OED. Used also in 5254 as a synonym for logic. See also 4764, 4771. toto genere different: “entirely different in kind”. ens absolutè positum: “an entity posited absolutely”. I Am that I Am: Exodus 3:14. See esp 4523, 4671. A=A or A −A: A is A or A is contrary to minus A. The example is used by Kant in the pages referred to above. Quid est Spiritus…Spiritus: “What is Spirit? An entity positing itself. What is an entity positing itself. Spirit.” f42v λογοι: “reasons, ideas, principles”; “words”. See 4763 above. “sounds”. ειδωλα: “images”, or Bacon’s idola, “idols”; see CN III 4058 f74, and above 4739 and n. Impossible…ac non esse: “It is impossible for the same thing at once to be and not to be.” It seems useful to quote Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, the Transcendental Doctrine of Judgement Chap II § I referred to above: The principle of contradiction must therefore be recognised as being the universal and completely sufficient principle of all analytic knowledge; but beyond the sphere of analytic knowledge it has, as a sufficient criterion of truth, no authority and no field of application. The fact that no knowledge can be contrary to it without self-nullification, makes this principle a conditio sine qua non, but not a determining ground, of the truth of our [non-analytic] knowledge. Now in our critical enquiry it is only with the synthetic portion of our knowledge that we are concerned; and in regard to the truth of this kind of knowledge we can never look to the above principle for any positive information, though, of course, since it is inviolable, we must always be careful to conform to it. Although this famous principle is thus without content and merely formal, it has sometimes been carelessly formulated in a manner which involves the quite unnecessary admixture of a synthetic element. The formula runs: It is impossible that something should at once and the same time both be and not be. Apart from the fact that the apodeictic certainty,
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expressed through the word ‘impossible’, is superfluously added—since it is evident of itself from the [very nature of the] proposition—the proposition is modified by the condition of time. It then, as it were, asserts: A thing =A, which is something=B, cannot at the same time be not −B, but may very well in succession be both B and not−B. For instance, a man who is young cannot at the same time be old, but may very well at one time be young and at another time not-young, that is, old. The principle of contradiction, however, as a merely logical principle, must not in any way limit its assertions to time-relations. The above formula is therefore completely contrary to the intention of the principle. Tr N.Kemp Smith (1950) 190–1. axioms, but neither…a Principle: See above 4764 41v, metabasis εις αλλο γενος: “transference to another kind”, Aristotle’s phrase; see its use in SM:LS (CC) 99 and n 4. A (=omne ens) non est Y, pro predicato ejus…: “A (everything that is) is not Y, whatever the predicate may be.” Omne Ens…non ens est/: “Every existent that is not existent, does not exist”…[i.e. is Non-sense]. Cf a MS note which suggests that Coleridge here may be arguing against Hegel. On the blank leaves of his copy in the BM of Hegel’s Wissenschaft der Logik (3 pts in 2 vols Nuremberg 1812, 1813, 1816) referring to pp 41–2 he wrote: “…Nichts is at all times subjective—that is, a word expressing the relation of Being not manifested, relatively to the Subject, to whom it is not manifested—In plain English Nothing =nothing to you. An Objective nothing is not so truly non-ens as nonsens—it is an absurdity….” f43 nego…affirmo: “I deny…I affirm”. removeo pono: “I remove” as opposed to “I place, posit”. in infants ng, the Hebrew Naing: I.e. the letter now called “ain”, described in 4644 f28v part of a Greek grammar in SWF: “F intensest Aspirate, the initial F, unpronouncible by civilized Organs but an approximation to the sound preserved in the double gg in αγγελος may be distinguished in the fretful throat tightening sounds of Babies, the nang nang, retained in all languages probably in words of the same family with angor, anger, angina, angustus &c”. See 4637 and n; also CM II under Hartley Coleridge Northern Worthies 173. 4766 29.65 The meaning of the 7 in the upper left corner is apparent in 4771 f47. This entry was used in the Logic (CC) 7–8 Introductory Chap I § 3. Individuals…the first knowleges: Subjects of In the infancy…of perpetual interest to Coleridge, as to many of his contemporaries, e.g. Steffens, Schelling, Herder. See e.g. on the infancy of States 4637, 5059 and nn, and Coleridge’s (later) notes on Vico’s New Science in 5204, 5211, 5232 and nn. On infancy, and first knowleges of Individuals being obtained promiscuously, see e.g. CN I 924, 1414, and in this volume 5187 and n, in all of which the origin lies beyond Memory, even in the uterine world, where the Method is certainly the Method of Nature. See also 4611. “Method in it”: Hamlet II ii 211. Thousandfold Experiences, whose origin lies beyond Memory, traceless as life itself. Cf e.g. on uterine experiences 5187 and n, and among numerous approaches to a concept
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of the unconscious mind 4988, 4534n. And see the Freudian equation of unbewusst with primary in CN III 3562. 4767 29.66 Alogology: Not in OED; an ironical coinage for the pseudo-learning of the Alogi, or philosophers who deny ideas. Alogist originally meant those who denied the Logos. See above 4692 and below 4794 f35v and nn. de umbrâ asini, sive de tribus Capellis: “about the shadow of an ass or about three hairs”; cf below 4822 and n. a mere Logomachy…Logodædaly. Coleridge makes this opposition between disputes merely about words and trickery with words in AR 119. Cf the Logic (CC) 123: “…he most noted questions in philosophy… are not mere logomachies easily reconciled by showing that though both parties used the same word, yet each understood it in a different sense”. A few pages earlier (120–1), dubbing this a “sophisma pigrum, or sophistry of indolence” (see above 4618 and n), he quoted Mendelssohn’s Morgenstunden. Of Logodædaly (Kant used Logodädalie in his essay on Jacobi on Mendelssohn Morgenstunden: VS III 93–4) Bayle provided Coleridge’s prime example. “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.’ “See Logic (CC) 124 and n. common at present is the…keeping out of sight real distinctions: See 4947, 5115 and nn. “This is not a logical age” he said (TT 4 Jan 1823), and cf the Logic (CC) 122, where he compares his times with the Elizabethan. 4768 29.67 nationëity: On the pattern of ipseity, multeity, i.e. essential character as a nation, nationhood. to discourage Petitions is a high misdemeanour—& to discourage the freedom of the Press…: a view newly stimulated perhaps by the government’s attempts to suppress popular support for the Queen, in the summer of 1820, but integral to Coleridge’s thinking from Cambridge days onwards. See e.g. the numerous entries under freedom in indexes to Lects 1795 (CC), The Watchman (CC), The Friend (CC), and EOT (CC). f45 Gibbon’s…advice to Lord Shelbourne: No evidence of advice from Gibbon to Shelbourne has been found. Does Coleridge mean Gibbon’s great friend, Lord Sheffield, a strong supporter of the freedom of the press who debated several times in defence of John Wilkes, and to whom Gibbon wrote, 20 Dec 1783, in the tone to which Coleridge is objecting? Cf With regard to the substance of the business, I scarcely know what to think: the vices of the Company [East India Company], both in their persons and their constitution were manifold and manifest, the danger was imminent, and such an empire, with thirty millions of Subjects was not to be lost for trifles. Yet on the other hand, the faith of Charters, the rights of property! I hesitate and tremble. Such an innovation would at least require that the remedy should be as certain as the evil….
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J.E.Norton The Letters of Edward Gibbon (3 vols 1956) II 384. Metternich, to a South German Monarch: Possibiy a reference to the well-known episode, after the French victory at Wagram, (5–6 July 1809) when Metternich (1773– 1859), Austrian ambassador to France, suggested to Austria, which had made war on France largely at his instigation, that it should negotiate peace with France; an armistice was entered into a week later. Revolution of 1668…which Blackstone admits to have been legal in the letter of the Law: Coleridge’s 1668 is an obvious slip for 1688. In Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England Bk I Chap 3 §§ 210–216 the bill of exclusion of 1688 and the establishment (nevertheless) of the principle of hereditary monarchy, “indefeasible unless by parliament” is discussed. Coleridge is remembering and interpreting, not quoting Blackstone; if his last point, about the half-way between Pardon and Acquittal is in the Commentaries it has not been found in the edition of Edward Christian (4 vols 1809) which Coleridge was using earlier. See CN III 3830–3844. 4769 29.68 Syro-Chaldean Version & Paraphrase; The translation of the OT known as the Peshitta (vulgate), and its Masorah, or textual and marginal comments. The age, content, history, and relation of these texts to other texts are amply traced in Eichhorn AT I 441–62. state of the Jewish Scriptures…before Ezra: I.e. their disarray during the Babylonian Captivity. Vide St Paul.. Romans: Rom 9:3–5. Cf CN III 4401 and n on Coleridge’s interpretation of this text. See also Rom 10. 4770 29.69 f45v ιερα yραµµατα: Literally “sacred letters”; see 4794, 4832 and nn. On Gen 2:4 onwards, as “translated from Hieroglyphic Column”, see CN III 4325. the Document to begin with V.: I.e. the Document that Coleridge thinks makes up the second of the Creation stories. He has left blank the number of the verse which he considers the initial one; in 4667 above he cited it as verse 4. f46 subject is not the creation of Woman…: Gen 2:18–25 begins with God’s resolution to give Adam “an help-meet”, continues with the naming of the animals, and concludes with the creation of woman, and the institution of Marriage. I do not agree with my Friend, Hurwitz: See 4702 and 4703; Hurwitz said in Vindiciae Hebraicae (46–8) that the beasts were sent to Adam not only to be named but also to help him realize that he was not to be “a solitary, selfish creature, but the father of mankind”, and hence they came in pairs, male and female, to heighten his awareness of a lack of a mate for himself. co-aggreation: A slip for co-aggregation. nomina quasi νουµενα: “names”,asthough,or equivalent to noumena. Coleridge very frequently drew on the similarity of the spelling of nomina (names), νούµενα (lit “things thought”, thoughts) and numina (divine powers). See 4625 and n. On noumena, see also 4739 and n. Trance (falsely translated, deep sleep): Gen 2:21; again Coleridge is in disagreement with Hurwitz (55–7), who writes that the Hebrew word troma is “very properly rendered a deep sleep”. NEB uses the word “trance” and most Hebrew dictionaries define troma as “trance”. Hurwitz himself (56) has given “entranced” as a synonym.
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Ως ιδον, ως εµανην ως ες βαθος αλλοµ’ Eρωτος: “I saw, I was deranged, I plunged to the depths of love”; adapted from Theocritus Idylls 3. 41. f46v Storgè: “maternal love”, “parental instinct”; see CN III 3675 and n and 4884, 5381 below and nn. 4771 29.70 f46v Logic commence with—I. Following a train of thought in 4763–4767 above, and reordering the argument, his own Logic does so commence; see Logic (CC) 23. See below f47, where the indication to turn back seven pages does not help one fully to reconstruct the intended revision. Kant’s Verm[ischte] Schr[iften] Vol, 3. [Halle 1799] p. 107 refers to the essay “Ueber den Gebrauch teleologischer Principien in der Philosophie”, “On the use of teleological principles in philosophy” (101–44). The essay is not annotated in any of Coleridge’s three copies of VS, this entry suggesting in effect that by whatever circumstance, notebook entries may be alternatives to marginalia at times, and possibly vice-versa. Kant made at greater length (106 [misprinted 110]–107) Coleridge’s first point, the desirability of distinguishing between the natural sciences. The passage Coleridge is referring to is an extended single sentence (107): I beg the reader to give me the benefit of this pedantry, for I have in other cases become acquainted with so many disasters as a result of carelessness in allowing the borders between the sciences to run into one another, and have drawn attention to them—not to everyone’s pleasure; moreover, I am quite convinced that a wholly new light is often cast upon the sciences simply by distinguishing like from unlike, which had previously been treated all of a piece; it is true, this also reveals a number of trivialities which had previously been hidden by information really belonging to other categories, but it also opens up many genuine sources of knowledge where they might never have been guessed at. Watts, Duncan, Condillac: & “a hundred others”. Isaac Watts (1674–1748), better known as a writer of hymns, published a Logic in 1725 on which Coleridge poured amused contempt in CN I 531, 1560. William Duncan (1717–60), Professor of Philosophy in the Marischal College of Aberdeen, wrote Elements of Logic in Four Books—designed particularly for the young gentlemen at the university, and to prepare the way to the study of philosophy and the mathematics. (A new edition Edinburgh 1807). Étienne Bonnot de Condillac, whose name Coleridge usually misspelled, propounded a sensationism Coleridge always attacked; see CN I 634 and n, CN II 2193, and CN III 4358n; see also f47n below; also Lect 12 P Lects (CC) f584 and n 78. Coleridge’s proposed History of Logic was to treat Condillac in the concluding chapter. Logic (CC) xli; see ibid also 6 and n, 316 and n on Watts and Condillac. in some books entitled Logic…not a word of Logic itself: Cf a footnote in MS VCL BT 16 (after a reference to “the Logic of Condillac”): “It be more accurate perhaps to say that the Study of Logic altogether is exploded in France, for Condillac’s Book is rather psychological than logical….” Condillac begins with the senses and sensations, and writes of various processes of thinking. f47 On the other hand from the seventh page to the Readers natural Judgement counted backwards: Coleridge, in back-tracking on his own argument, was returning to f43v, which he marked in the upper left hand corner 7”, i.e. in the entry now numbered
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4766; that entry was used in the Logic immediately after this one. He was trying to put in another order the logic materials on ff41v–46v by inserting an extra indicator, distinctive pagination of a sort; in the upper left corners he put minute arabic odd numbers (1–11) on the versos, ff46v–41v (running thus backwards), presumably to lead him to the 7. f47 History of Common Logic…3 movements: It is of interest that after Aristotelian and scholastic logic Coleridge sees the impressive reformation to have been Wolff’s, not Kant’s, thinking perhaps of how Wolff by applying Aristotle to Leibnitz reorganized and systematized Common Logic and the fields of knowledge. Christian von Wolff (1679– 1754) whose Logic, or Rational Thoughts on the Powers of the Human Understanding in an English translation (1770) Coleridge annotated, paved the way to Kant. Coleridge’s annotations on this work were printed by A.D.Snyder in L & L App C. See also CN III 3346, 4358 and nn for Coleridge’s view, like Kant’s, that a history of logic was essential to any study of logic and philosophy. I give a review of Condillac’s Tract: Coleridge appears to mean that in his own Logic he will give a review of Condillac’s Tract. If by the Tract he refers to La Logique (2 vols Paris 1780) the paragraph here is hardly a review; Condillac’s Pt I is on the experience of thinking and Pt II on the problems of language in connexion with these experiences. Perhaps by calling it a Tract (236 pp in this little 12 m°) Coleridge wished to attribute to it a propagandist character. Its basic assertion in the last chapter (IX) (132) “nos idées et nos facultés ne sont que la sensation qui prend différentes formes” (“our ideas and our faculties are only sensation taking different forms”) could hardly be less congenial to Coleridge. The short perpendicular line well down on f47 appears to cancel, or to represent an impulse to cancel, but as it was not completed it is not clear what revision was considered. f47v empirically from psychological experiences: A “Psychological Method” was attributed to Shakespeare by Coleridge; cf Method 32 and fn, where he explained apologetically, “We have no single term to express the Philosophy of the Human Mind: and what is worse, the Principles of that Philosophy are commonly called Metaphysical, a word of very different meaning.” The comparative definitions of Grammar, Meta-grammar, Rhetoric, and Logic appear variously in Coleridge’s works in several places, including the Logic (CC) 23. 1. Grammaticè…: “Grammar (fitting together of letters).” 2. Rhematicè…: “Rhematic (ordering together of words).” See 5133 f96, 5148. 3. Rhetoricè…: “Rhetoric (putting together of persuasions or inducements).” 4. Logicè…: “Logic (tying together of reasons).” 4772 28.87 Relevant to this entry is 4684 above. Coleridge’s unusually reactionary sentiments here were common in the post-Napoleonic depression years of economic distress and the public hysteria over the Queen’s trial; the lack of real political information because of the extent of the power and secrecy of the King and his supporters played a large part in the unrest. Palace Yard…Spa Fields: All places associated with what Byron called “the new force of the people”. In Palace Yard the attack was on the King. Smithfield was remembered for popular riots, and at Spa Fields in December 1816 there were violent demonstrations by the unemployed and a threat to seize the Tower of London.
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North Country Assemblages: E.g. in St Peter’s Fields, Manchester, 16 Aug 1819, resulted in the “Peterloo Massacre”, but there had been bread riots in the north since 1816. Sir C.W.: Sir Charles Wolseley (1769–1846), one of the earliest members of the union for parliamentary reform, in 1812, a founder of the Hampden Club. After succeeding to the baronetcy in 1817 he identified himself with the more aggressive radicals. He was arrested 19 July 1819 for his part in an organized mass demonstration at Stockport, and he publicly supported the families of Peterloo victims. In April 1820 he was sentenced at Chester to 18 months imprisonment for conspiracy and sedition. In Jan 1821 while still in jail he was elected, with Bentham, Burdett, and others, to a Middlesex electors committee for parliamentary reform. Lord Sidmouth: Home Secretary at this time, until 1822, was known to be of gentle temper in personal matters, strict, even severe, in public ones. He was interested to secure established religion, if necessary by force (see 4684 and n) and believed in troops to quell social unrest. He advocated the abolition of Habeas Corpus. See 4720, 4723 and nn. Chiefly because of his “gagging bills” and his advocacy of the Six Acts, history has generally called him more repressive than saintly. 4773 28.88 Being certain feeling positive: See CN I 1410, II 3095; No I The Friend (CC) II 7; 6 P Lects (CC) f246, and many other places. There is a close personal application of the distinction in CN II 2196 f105. desynonomization: Not a slip for desynonymization. C often used this etymologically correct spelling. The word, noun and verb, was Coleridge’s coinage and his hobby-horse; see CN I 1336, II 1860n, 2432; also P Lects (CC) Lect 4 ff135–138, Lect 5 ff 179–180, 204, Lect 6 ff236–239, Lect 13 ff592–594. 4774 28.89 the difficulties of communicating the truth: One of the main themes of The Friend and closely related to the difficulty of keeping clear the distinction between Reason and Understanding; see 5293 and n, among the many statements in this volume. Metaphors…Symbolic: A form of the fancy-imagination distinction; cf the allegorysymbol discussion in the first of the Lay Sermons (CC) 29–30, and, close to this entry, ibid 79; see 4711 and n; also the very full treatment in 4831, 4832 and nn. the vis poetica…lebt und webt in a form not its own: “The poetic power/creative force”…“lives and moves” in the larger context of the constant struggle for truth; the want of that struggle (or is it the want of poetry, of imagination?) is a sufficient cause of men taking to distractions of restless kinds, gambling, war, etc, as corruptions of the instinctive human craving for something more intellectually significant. Coleridge’s footnote is less than clear, from the indefiniteness of the pronoun, but cf the LS reference cited above. See also Lect 4 P Lects (CC) ff167–171 and Lect 5 ff222– 225, the description of The Triumph of Death fresco in Pisa. 4775 28.90 Entries 4648, 4652, 4653, 4662, 4775, and 4776 are all linked by a running dialogue with Steffens and a reading of his Grundzüge, referred to in 4652. If inferences from the appearance of the notebook are correct, entries 4652 and 4653 are earlier, and 4775 and 4776 suggest a return to Steffens with a more deliberate purpose in mind, possibly the dictating of some work—the Logic or the Opus Maximum—or simply a discussion for the Thursday evening class; see the beginning of 4776. f80v Steffens…in the spirit of the Ionic School: See also 4776 and n. Cf Grundzüge 12– 13:
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Tr: Contrary to history, Nature represents the finite, the definite, the necessary; history, in opposition to Nature, the infinite, the indefinite, the free. But merely as contraries, they are both relative, in and for themselves, both absolute. Nature is the infinite-finite; the finite in her is in fact infinite, the eternal the identity of both. The necessary in her, by being taken up into [the act of] knowing, which is what first brings her to completion, thought of as truly free (this knowing, of course, is regarded as a timeless knowing, posed equally absolutely with the being of Nature); the form through which the infinite is assumed into the finite, is Space, identified through the act of knowing, with Time. History is the finite-infinite, but in such a way that the infinite in her is in fact finite, the eternally-true the identity of both. The free in her becomes necessary through the compulsion of Nature, which is what first brings her to completion. The form through which the finite is assumed into the infinite is Time, which is identified by absolute knowing with Space. Space and Time, the necessary and the free, are relative forms which become identical upon that standpoint where Nature and history are indifferent. Coleridge was reading Steffens Grundzüge 20:(tr) “Through Time the finite is taken up into the infinite, and through Space the infinite is taken up into the finite.” Coleridge worked out his own version and rendered “the infinite taken up into the finite” as the Boundless subsumed in the Bounded. f81 ask V’ridè which he likes the best: J.H.Green. generation of a Line…continuity to the Point: This metaphor for generation and production is in Schelling Einleitung 32, and, like the concept of product, is much used by Schelling and by Coleridge. See 4513 and n. Coleridge is here stressing, in his variant definitions of space and time, the productive interdependence of the two—hence his (f82) But Space actualized must re-act, as the co-agent with Time. In infinito finiendo…est Figura: “In the giving bounds to the Boundless, the limitable Limitless is Space, the Limiting is Time, the Action by which the Limitless is limited is Motion and the Product is Shape/ Figure”. f82 lædit in amplexu: “he injures in embracing”, i.e. in Statius Thebaid 3.294 Mars injures Venus in embracing. ως το “as the opposite to form”. the mysterious Love-and-War-Embrace of productive Nature: See CN III 4418 f14 and n, and in this volume 5249 f34v and n; this is nature’s dynamic polarity. Length, breadth, depth are metaphors for successive stages of production, corresponding to different levels of powers. Schelling expounds the concept, though not in this language, in his “Allgemeine Deduction des dynamischen Process” in Zeitschrift für spekulativ Physik I (1800) II 1–87. Lineal…Globular: see 5406n. f82v (Tempus, ut υis Figuræ… ). The Greek word is Coleridge’s coinage: “Time, as the power of Figure, the figurative impulse, the approach to form”.
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(Spatium ut nisus…Fugacitas a Longitudine): “Space as the impulse opposed to form, Flight from Length”. (globus, (σταγµα): “a globe, a drop”. f83 πρωτον ψευδòς: ψενδòς: “primary error”; see also CN III 3824 f112v and n. This was a favourite phrase, especially frequent in Coleridge’s many attacks on the “fundamental error” of Schelling and Steffens, as pantheistic; see also e.g. CN III 4449, 4450 and nn. ƒ83υ potenziations: See 4719 f53 and n. υis continui: “force of continuity”. fugacitas a Lineâ: “flight from the Line”. …
…
See 4555 and n, and for Coleridge’s symbols generally, App A.
centrality corresponds to the point, specific gravity is an intermediate power in depth, and gravitation is also the totality of powers, the co-involution of each in each; thus there is a productive sequence of powers. Subposita: “basic postulates of’. re posita et facta: “in fact posited and made real”. □=/and 2>as….and~: for Coleridge’s symbols see App A. □ actualised space, sometimes equated with the Mosaic darkness, corresponds to the substantiative North and South, while it is distinguished in the Compass of Nature powers/and from > Light, which corresponds to….and~, East and West. 4776 28.91 INTRODUCTION to the preceding: I.e. 4775. Prefatory to some work? The Opus Maximum? As in 4775 Coleridge was reading Steffens Grundzüge 20, where Steffens’s crucial argument is (tr) “Space in opposition to Time, is a pure Extension; Time in opposition to Space, pure Intensity. The Identity of Intensity and Extension is Power”. An organised form of life in which hydrogen predominates over oxygen. “plants, on the one hand, perhaps also on the other plant-like forms”. Divi et Numina Cosmoplastæ: “the Cosmoplastic Divinities and Powers”. Cf 4558 and n. ƒ84v the variance between our system and the Schellingian: His and Green’s; see 4724n. Basically Coleridge opposed the abstract “Nature” of the Naturphilosophen with its hypothesis of a necessary development in Nature ab intra, as opposed to the dynamic creative principle Coleridge and Green affirmed, God. See 4541. Steffens, especially in his Beyträge zur innern Naturgeschichte der Erde: See among many entries drawing on or referring to this work, 4719, 4724, 4778. Coleridge is more complimentary about it than any other work of Steffens; he found there a wealth of data to support the view of chemistry as vital to geology and life. Similar remarks on his essential differences with the Naturphilosophen are made in the Op Max (MS) I ff78–83, with a similar compliment to Steffens’s Beyträge. ƒ85 usque ab initio: “from the very beginning”. his familiar Genius imprisoned within the magic Circle of its own describing: An odd context for the image of encircled genius at the close of Kubla Khan, though here perhaps with a difference personally significant. See “Restraint”.
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definitions of Space and Time: see 4654 and n above. On Coleridge’s association of Steffens with the genial Spirit of Anaximander and Parmenides cf 4518, 4521. Parmenides was not an Ionian, but an Italian Greek, and a member of the Eleatic School, but he wrote about the validity of Ionic theories. On Anaximander see CN III 4445 and n, and Lect 14 P Lects (CC) and n 6. Then proceed from p. 07: I.e. f80v in 4775. See N 28 Gen N. 4777 28.92 Himself? Hartley? 4778 28.93 Steffens had “an intuition” or “an inkling” of the nebular hypothesis of Laplace in the Traité de Mécanique Céleste. p. 28 of his first manual-book: Grundzüge, see 4648, 4662, &c. It seems useful to quote the original here, there being some doubt whether Steffens had an inkling of celestial mechanics, or rather planetary motions in the (current) solar system, or whether he was referring obliquely to Laplace’s nebular hypothesis as set forth in the first two editions of his Exposition du Système du Monde (1796, 1799). See 5144n. On “The Five Forms of Laplace’s Cosmogony” see American Journal of Physics (Cambridge, Mass 1976) 4–11. Steffens wrote: Der wahre Mittelpunkt des Planeten, das zugleich Formende und Konstruirende, der Repräsentant der Einheit der Schwere und des Lichts, ist die Sonne. Die sichtbare Sonne, so wie sie sich für eine endliche Anschauung darstellt, ist selbst nur ein Reflex der wahren Sonne, die in einem jeden Planeten, in einer jeden Organisation, als das Ansicht des formenden und Konstruirenden Princips ist. Tr: The true centre of the planet, both forming and constructing, the representative of the unity of gravity and light, is the sun. The visible sun, as it presents itself to our finite perception, is itself only a reflexion of the true sun which is the essential in each and every planet, in each and every organisation the forming and constructing principle. Coleridge wrote a note on the opposite page in Steffens (29), but it was not pertinent to this topic. if the Sun goes forth as Form: Steffens’s “visible sun” and “the true sun” (natura naturata and natura naturans) was a distinction attractive to Coleridge; see CN III 4397 f50v and n, also 4558 f53v and n. the First born: Col 1:18. Or Hebrews 12:23? all struggle in nature is productive Embrace: See for another expression of the resolution of internecine contradictions in the war-embrace of cosmic forces, 4775 f82, 5233, CN III 4418 f14 and n. for νίκη, i.e. νικη αει ερως: “victory always love”. Did Coleridge intend “strife always love”? He made this same slip, if it was a slip, in a note on Eichhorn Apok 106 (front fly-leaf) where he attributed the phrase to Heraclitus. Empedocles is recorded as having used νεĩκος (strife) and (love) as cosmic forces.
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4779 28.94 f86 Donum υeritatis: “gift of truth”. casus rectus: “upright case”, i.e. to ancient grammarians the nominative case, from which the other cases fell away. f86v Descartes’ orthodox assertion: Coleridge has summarized the theory set forth in “Pars Tertia” of the Principia philosophiae: Opera philosophica (see CN III 4087 and n). Coleridge was also familiar with the summary in Tennemann X 257. his quibble…in support of Transsub’n: In answer to an objection to his “heterodoxy” by Arnauld (see 5161 and n) elaborated in the “Reply to the fourth set of Objections”: Meditations: Philosophical Works tr Haldane and Ross (2 vols Cambridge 1931) II 116– 22. On Descartes Meditationes see also below 5121 and n. Against the argument that his theory of motions of the minute particles as the essence of substance endangered the doctrine of transsubstantiation because it made such “accidents” as extension, figure, colour, odour, savour, and other sensible qualities dependent on substance, and if the accidents do not change, the substance must not have changed, Descartes replied that we perceive the nature of things only by their outward limits, this should not deceive us into thinking that no changes are taking place below that surface, that the transsubstantiation might be taking place within the interstices in the bread substance, that the accidents of Christ’s body would not be in the bread anyway, the bread requires its own accidents and such accidents cannot subsist of themselves apart from a substance, and that Christ’s body in the bread without its own accidents is a miracle that we must believe, not try to understand. The last: I.e. Truth-bartering, for worldly Honors (f86 above). McInshes: On Sir James Mackintosh see, among many hostile references, CN I 947 and n; also TT 27 1823. 4780 28.95 This entry is a series of quick, disconnected jottings from George Chalmers Caledonia: or, An Account, Historical and Topographic, of North Britain; from the Most Ancient to the Present Times: with a Dictionary of Places, Chorographical and Philological (3 vols 1807, 1810, 1824). Many of Chalmers’ dates are now questioned; a tew corrections are suggested in Index I. f87v Coleridge’s first sentence is based on Chalmers 1 218, an example of his method of working here: The Welsh archaiology has, at length, furnished the curious inquirers after a language, which has been supposed, by the English chroniclers of the middle ages to be lost, with some admirable poems, in the Pictish language. The Caledonian Myrddin, or Merlinus Caledonius, who was born on the north of the Clyde, and flourished about 560 A.D. has left an elegant specimen of Pictish poetry, in his Avallenau, wherein he speaks of Caledonia, as his native soil (n). The Gododin of Aneurin, who wrote his elegant poem, about 540 A.D. may also be justly deemed a specimen of Pictish poetry:… A footnote gives a four-line quotation in Welsh, with a translation. The names and dates of Pictish and Scottish kings that follow are found in Chalmers I 206, 375. Lady Gruoch…Ross & Moray: Condensed from Chalmers I 405.
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f88 Kenneth III…assassinated’. Chalmers I 395–6. Finlegh…1052: Chalmers 403; Coleridge’s must be the same as Boedhe is not warranted; as Chalmers reports, Maolbride and Boedhe were the grandfathers of Lulach, son of Gruoch’s first husband. Boedhe, Son of Kenneth IVth…Malcolm: Chalmers I 404–5; the passage continues with Coleridge’s excerpt about Lady Gruoch above. f88v Vikinger, or Pirate Kings—Sigurd, Thorfin: Chalmers I 453–4: …The potent Maormors of this peninsular range appeared early, in bloody conflicts, with those rapacious sea-kings. In those honourable scenes, appeared Finlegh, at the end of the tenth century (c). As Maormor of Ross, he was succeeded by his son, Macbeth, the tyrant of Shakspeare (f). As Maormor of Ross, Macbeth overpowered the king, and seized the sceptre. X.SUTHERLAND and CATHNESS, formed a district, which, at the end of the tenth century, was ruled by Sigurd, the Norwegian Earl of Orkney. This powerful prince was succeeded by his son, Thorfin, the grandson of Malcolm II.; who claimed authority over the Gaelic people of the interior country; though they owed submission to the Scotish king. There are other references to this conflict on I 340–1, 407. Is it Coleridge’s point of interest in this account that there were no rebellious Macbeths in the western isles during Duncan’s reign because its Norwegians, not the Scottish kings, were the real rulers? War-cries: Cf Chalmers I 460–62: …The war-cry may be traced up to the earliest ages, among the most ancient people. It was a sort of watchword, by which the individuals of the same clan recognized each other, either amidst the darkness of night, or the confusion of battle. And, the cries of war were of very different kinds: The most common were the names proper; as, when Gideon gave his cry to his party against the Midianites: To the Lord, and to Gideon. Others were cries of invocation, such as the cry of Montmorency: God assist the first christian. But, the most interesting were the cries of rendezvous, as Montjoie Saint Denis; rally under the banner of St. Denis (f). The Celtic nations seem to have been peculiarly attached to the war-cry, owing, perhaps, to the hostile state of society, wherein they usually lived. The Irish, in all their encounters, commonly used a general exclamation; crying out, as we know from Spenser, Ferragh! Ferragh!…The chief of the numerous clan of the Grants had, for his war-cry, Craig-elachie, or rock of alarm…. The war-cry of Braemar, in Aberdeenshire, is Cairn-nacuimhne, the cairn of remembrance. Even now, after so many customs have been buried in oblivion, if this cry be raised, within that district, in any fair, or assembly of people, all the men collect, for the purpose of protecting the injured individuals.
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Coleridge’s interest seems to have been literary, in the border country and in Macbeth and Sigurd. Did his reading of Chalmers lead him to turn again (see CN I 294n) to Pennant in 4783? In describing the plate in Pennant there, he described a mountain as pap-headed, a word not in Pennant, but Chalmers I 412 called Dunsinan “this pap-like height”; not that Coleridge needed any guide to be led to that phrase. Cf 4783 f89. 4781 28.96 Coleridge may have returned for the astronomy here to D.G.H.Schubert Ansichten υon der Nachtseite der Naturwissenschaft (Dresden 1808); see CN III 4457 and n, and in this volume 4973 and n. Schubert discussed (35–43, 387–8) the views of ancient Brahmin, Egyptian, and Chaldaic philosophers of the “grosse magnetische Periode” (39), using the numbers 864 and 1728, which Coleridge gives. It is difficult, however, to account for the reference to the Equatic period out of Schubert. And Coleridge’s distrust of Schubert’s reasoning powers, referred to in CN III 4457n, makes it seem at least equally likely, at this date, that he was reading a more recent authority. The information here could well have come from Christopher Hansteen Untersuchungen über den Magnetismus der Erde…. Erster Theil: die mechanischen Erscheinungen des Magneten (Christiania 1819), either directly or from reviews. Hansteen attempted to substantiate Halley’s notion of four geomagnetic poles (not two) which rotate slowly about the north rotational pole, their periods of magnetic rotation being 864, 1296, 1728, and 4320 years; the two periods cited by Coleridge (864 and 1728) are for the north pair of magnetic poles. Hansteen’s work, under the translated title Inquiries concerning the Magnetism of the Earth, was reviewed in the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal vols III (1820) 124–38, and IV (1821) 114–24. Vol IV 121 refers to the striking “correspondence of his magnetic periods with certain remarkable numbers, to be found in the Greek and Oriental astronomy. We stated already that 860, 1304, 1740, 4609 years are the times, respectively, in which the four points of convergence are supposed to perform their revolution round the north and south poles. By a slight alteration those numbers become 864, 1296, 1728, 4320, or 2×432, 3×432, 4×432, 10×432….” The “great magnetic period” (ibid 123) was taken to be 25,920 years, this number being the least common multiple of 864, 1296, 1728, 4320; it is thus the timeinterval between two identical configurations of the four rotating poles. Equatic: See another review of Hansteen in Annals of Philosophy N.S. I (Jan—June 1821) 138–40, where reference is made to M.Biot, “who insists in his Traité de Physique tom iii p 131, that the line of no dip (magnetic equator) cuts the equator of the earth three or four times”. The rotation of these points of intersection, which can be actually observed, may perhaps constitute what is meant by the Equatic period. It may be of interest to note that if he concerned himself with the views of one who questioned the assumption of a dipolar magnetic field Coleridge was not merely out-ofdate. In an article in Nature Vol 262 (19 August 1976) 643, Peter J.Smith discusses various hypotheses about the “Assumed dipolar magnetic field”, and suggests that although the dipole theory is generally accepted it is not entirely sacrosanct; “other tests may still be required before the persistence of the dipole can be said to be scientifically certain”. 4782 28.97 The entry is based on Bk III of Long’s Astronomy (see 4652n) II 542:
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…the ancient Chaldeans are said not only to have looked upon comets to be a kind of planets, that had periodical motions, but also to have foretold their appearances; this last was undoubtedly a vain boast of theirs, but is the less to be wondered at, as they pretended to foretell earthquakes also: these predictions were probably founded not upon any knowledge of the periodical times of comets, or any maxims of true philosophy; but upon some fallacious rules of judicial astrology, to which that nation was greatly addicted. 4783 28.98 Thomas Pennant A Tour in Scotland and A Voyage to the Hebrides (2 vols 1790) I 377–98. (Coleridge’s Vol. II is a mistake). See 4780. f89 The nigh mountain…former: Coleridge was describing a plate, as well as following Pennant’s text I 379–80, perhaps worth quoting to make plain Coleridge’s use and condensation of such material: We found ourselves seated in a spot equalized by few in picturesque and magnificent scenery. The banks of the river that rushes by the house are fringed with trees; and the course often interrupted by cascades. At a small distance the ground begins to rise: as we mount, the eyes are entertained with new objects; the river rolling beneath the dark shade of alders, an extent of plain composed of fields bounded by groves; and as the walk advances, appears a deep and tremendous hollow, shagged with trees, and winding far amidst the hills. We are alarmed with the roar of invisible cataracts, long before their place is discovered; and find them precipitating themselves down narrow chasms of stupendous depths, so narrow at top, that highlanders in the eagerness of the chace will fearlessly spring over these Barathra. They meander for miles amidst the mountains, and are the age-worn work of water, branch off into every glen, hid with trees of various species. Torrents roll over their bottoms often darting down precipices of a thousand forms, losing themselves beneath the undermined rocks, and appearing again white with the violence of the fall. By laying aside the boughs, and creeping to the verge, got sight of these otherwise latent cataracts; but the prospect sufficiently tired my head. Besides these darksome waters, multitudes of others precipitate themselves in full view down the steep sides of the adjacent hills; and create for several hundreds of feet a series of most magnificent falls. Above rises a magnificent hill, which as far as the sight can reach is cloathed with birch and pines, the shelter of stags, roes and black game. To the West is a view where the aweful, or rather the horrible predominates. A chain of rocky mountains, some conoid, but united by links of a height equal to most in North Britain, with sides dark, deep, and precipitous, with summits broken, sharp, serrated, and spiring into all terrific forms; with snowy glacieres lodged in the deep shaded apertures. These crags are called Squr-fein, or hills of wine: they rather merit the title of Squr-shain, or rocks of wind; for here Aeolus may be said to make his
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residence, and be ever employed in fabricating blasts, squalls and hurricanes, which he scatters with no sparing hand over the subjacent vales and lochs. f89v Cloud-berries (the Latin name in a footnote) are on I 380. Loch-nan-niun…Loch Broom: Greatly abbreviated, I 380–82. The Dike of Stones…Druidical…as transfer is easier than abolition: The last phrase is Coleridge’s paraphrase of Pennant’s “as the readiest method of making a conquest over the minds of the inhabitants” I 382. Devils if you like; but Venus, Cupid &c. must not be 0s [ciphers]: Coleridge’s interpolation. The stump of a vast Tree: Pennant suggested (I 383) that it probably replaced a stone altar; Coleridge recalled one at Nether Stowey in 1796–8. f90 The well of the Saint, potent in Lunacy: Cf Pennant “of power unspeakable in cases of lunacy”. The description of the treatment of patients is abbreviated from Pennant I 383 and Manes is Coleridge’s for Pennant’s “saint”. “self-sown Pines” is Pennant’s attractive phrase (I 383); Coleridge selected from the next two pages in Pennant picturesque elements, introducing the skiey Serras, noticing the socially significant Potato gardens in the Peat-Moor, but omitting more personal details. f90v The thin gigantic Hag…Glasslich: Pennant, with the marginal gloss SPECTRE: It is not wonderful, that the imagination, amidst these darksome and horrible scenes, should figure to itself ideal beings, once the terror of the superstitious inhabitants: in less-enlighten’d times a dreadful spectre haunted these hills, sometimes in form of a great dog, a man, or a thin gigantic hag called Glas-lich. The exorcist was called in to drive away these evil Genii: he formed circle within circle, used a multitude of charms, forced the Daemon from ring to ring, till he got it into the last entrenchment, when, if it proved very obstinate by adding new spells, he never failed of conquering the evil spirit, who, like that which haunted the daughter of Raguel, was
With a vengeance sent From Media post to Egypt, there fast bound. Pennant 1 398–9. Pennant, it will be noted, made no reference to a Withered child. Pennant…the suggerent…of W.Scot’s Novels: See 4805 above and n. suggerent: Not in OED, though “sugger”, obs. for “suggest” is given. 4784 29.203 Possibly the entry was written hurriedly or under some sense of pressure or excitement, a guess based on three little slips in syntax from the omission of words on f128v. Was it intended for the Logic? Cf Logic (CC) 241–2 and n. Or to be dictated to the Thursday class? f128v line…Point: See 4513 and n.
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…the passage from Kant respecting Trichotomy: In the Critique of Pure Reason, in the Transcendental Analytic Bk I Chap II § 3? There Kant argued for “three subjective sources of knowledge upon which rests the possibility of experience in general and of knowledge of its object—sense, imagination, and apperception”, and that these are all “empirical”, and yet are also “a priori elements or foundations, which make this empirical employment possible…. But all perceptions are grounded a priori in pure intuition…association in pure synthesis of imagination, and empirical consciousness in pure apperception, that is in the thorough identity of the self in all possible representations.” He went on to describe the synthetic a priori character of “what may be called the transcendental principle of the unity of all that is manifold in our representation, and consequently also in intuition”. Tr N.Kemp Smith pp 141–2 (A 115– 17). Cf also the Kritik der Urtheilskraft Einleitung IX (Berlin 1799) lv ii n. In his annotations on Kant’s Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft, Coleridge attributed errors of “dualism” to Kant, but in the Logic (MS), discussing synthetic a priori judgements, and referring to the principle of “Trichotomy”, he said that what Kant “contents himself with noticing as being singular and worthy of notice, and which he supposes himself to have noticed first, may be found in a much earlier writer, our own celebrated Richard Baxter…. It [the trichotomous division of Reason, Understanding and Will] is a primary datum of the understanding, the way in which we reflect, proved to us by pure products of reflection as the existence of the forma formans must in every case be manifested by and in the formâ formata; but not to be explained by them.” Cf Logic (CC) 241–2. In a later note on a fourth volume of VS Coleridge says Kant “owed his after-greatness” to his exchanging of a dichotomy for a trichotomy; see CM II under Kant VS (Copy C) IV 354. See also Coleridge’s note on Richard Baxter Reliquiae (1696), annotated in 1820, where Coleridge made the same point of Baxter’s priority to Kant in the substitution of Trichotomy for the old & still general plan of Dichotomy in the Method and Disposition of Logic, which forms so prominent & substantial an excellence in Kant’s Critique of the Pure Reason, of the Judgement, &c…a century before Kant—& this not as a Hint but as a fully evolved & systematically applied Principle. Nay, more than this!— Baxter grounded it on an absolute Idea presupposed in all intelligential acts: whereas Kant takes it only as a Fact of Reflection—as a singular curious Fact, in which he seems to anticipate or suspect some yet deeper Truth latent, & hereafter to be discovered. CM I under R. Baxter Reliquiœ (Copy B) § 103. Baxter’s statement, in discussing the need for a systematic theology is quoted in Op Max (MS) Vol 2 ff37v–38: “…Dichotomizing will not do it; but…the Divine Trinity in Unity hath exprest it self in the whole Frame of Nature and Morality…” Reliquiae ibid. Pythagorean School of the Tetractys was also referred to in the continuation of the long annotation on Baxter just quoted, where it was followed by the Prothesis-Synthesis diagram, as here; see e.g. Lect 2 P Lects (CC) ff46–51 and nn 60, 61. See also 4829, 5143. Cf “this all-truths including truth of the Tetractys eternally manifested in the Triad” in Coleridge’s notes on Waterland: Eng Div II 210.
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semper presuppositum quod nunquam ponitur. “always pre-supposited, which is never posited”. See also 4648, and 5406. the philosophizing Greek Fathers…eternal Generation: Notably Origen and Dionysius of Alexandria; see on eternal Generation Coleridge’s notes on Waterland: Eng Div II 184, also 4907 and n. f128 the evils of Dichotomy. The of is in pencil in another hand as is the underlining of contains. The phrase refers to the treating of subject and object, thesis and antithesis, without synthesis. The significance of Coleridge’s distinction between contrary and opposite, insisted on in numerous places, and reflected in the table of symbols in App A below, is made apparent here. Note the image of Trunk and Branches. With this discussion of the Real, the Actual and the Potential, cf a letter (in a copy of C&S) to James Gillman the younger; C&S (CC) App 233–5. See also a further explanation in 4554n. Here introduce in a note the passage from Mendelssohn’s Morgenstunden: The reference clearly is to the passage introduced into the Logic. It appears at the end of Part I Chap I “Pure Logic or the Canon”, from Mendelssohn’s Morgenstunden (Frankfurt & Leipzig 1790). The quotations from Mendelssohn (7–8) are sometimes loosely translated by Coleridge. Cf Logic (CC) 57–8. …We may therefore establish it as a rule that “all legitimate syllogisms are grounded on a just analysis of conceptions”. In this point of view “the total sum of human knowledge may be represented under the image of a tree” so as to convey in a just and lively manner the principle on which all formal logic rests. “The outward points meet in sprays;—these under in twigs; the twigs in boughs; the boughs in branches; and the branches in one common trunk. We will suppose that the fibres of the trunk or stem run through all the branches, boughs, twigs and sprays, and in like manner the fibres of the branches, through all the remaining subdivisions.” And to make the likeness perfect we must further assume that “at every minor ramification they take certain fibres which they had not received from the higher division”, fibres of their own growth, or what would answer equally well, on modifications of the material received from below. “We shall thus have a striking image of the relations in which our conceptions stand to each other. All individual things [which] would answer to the extreme points of the tree, meet in different species; the species in kinds or genera; the kinds or genera in class[es], and finally the classes unite in some most general conception answering to the trunk or stem” in this genealogy of logic. Physiology in its widest sense as the science concerning created Nature: Cf a narrower physiology in 4834. Cf also the mere Physiology of Nature in 4929, and “the higher Physiology” in 4890. f127v Water-acid lately discovered by the French Chemist: Hydrogen peroxide, i.e. oxygenated (and acidified, says the French chemist) water. The chemist was M.Thénard, who in Annales de Chimie XI 208, and reported in QJSLA VII (1819) 379 foll, VIII (1820) 114–20, 154–5, discussed his success in combining oxygen with water, making a
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fluid charged with twenty-five or thirty times its volume of oxygen. Cf a marginal note by Coleridge on Oken’s Mineralogie: Naturgeschichte I 59: “The French Chemists have lately produced a true hydratic acid, by simple hyperoxygenation of Water…”. Neutralization…Indifference: See The Friend (CC) I 94 fn. Cf 4662, an earlier struggle with Identity and Indifference. Coleridge’s term is a slip for “termed”, produced for “produce”. co-inherence: See above 4713 and nn. Sulphuretted Hydrogen’. I.e. hydrogen sulphide, H2S, which has some acidic properties without containing oxygen. Here the whole passage on Grammar from this book: With the Mendelssohn annotation quoted above this seems to point to preparatory work in this entry for the Logic. The grammar passage in this book, N 29, is the first part of 4644, the later part of which is appearing in SWF; the Greek grammar CN III 4210 is not pertinent. the I Am, the eternal Word: See CN III 4265 and n; for some interesting relevant entries in this volume, where Coleridge’s attention to this theme markedly increases, see 4523, 4671 and n. For a thorough discussion of the radical importance of this phrase in various contexts, see McFarland CPT. 4785 29.209 This entry was on the page (and 4790 was above it), when 4786 became a discussion of it, as Coleridge continued his reading of the volume concerned; see 4786n. Entry 4791 was squeezed in on the page after all of them. There is an odd drawing on this page, of some unidentified shape, perhaps by a child. The sentences, the second one abbreviated, come from Kant’s essay “Untersuchungen über die Deutlichkeit der Grundsätze der natürlichen Theologie und der Moral” (1763), the first essay in Volume II of his VS 17–18; Coleridge did not annotate it in either of the two surviving copies of this volume in BM. The quotation comes in a section headed “Das Objekt der Mathematik ist leicht und einfältig, der Philosophie aber schwer und verwickelt.” Tr: “Metaphysics is without doubt the most difficult of all human insights: but one has not yet been written. We have cause to inquire after the road on which we first think to go in search of it.” Cf with these sentiments Coleridge’s earlier and more flippant comparison of poets and scholars, e.g. CN III 4280. It is of interest in connexion with CN III 3556 and n that the word Triebfedern (“die Triebfedern unserer Natur nicht genug bekannt ist”) appears on this page. 4786 29.210 f126v I…can never persuade myself…: See Kant’s “Vorrede” to “Der einzig mögliche Beweisgrund zur Demonstration des Daseins Gottes”: VS II 57. Tr: I have not so high an opinion of the usefulness of such efforts as the present one, as though the most important of all our perceptions, namely that there is a God, would waver and be in danger without the support of profound metaphysical inquiries. f126 The Disbeliever must be a Fool in heart: Ps 14:1 and 53:1. to make him wiser we must commence by making him better: See CN I 1612 also CN II 2445.
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f125v sensation of positiveness: Cf “how distinct and different the sensation of positiveness is from the sense of certainty” in No I The Friend (1809): (CC) II 7 and in many other places. Eye of the Surinam Spider: Coleridge frequently used Surinam toads in metaphors; was he crossing them here with Java spiders? See CN I 124 and 4882. f125 Clark, Wolf, and Mendelsohn: Probably Samuel Clarke (1675–1729), Christian Wolff (1679–1754), and Moses Mendelssohn (1729–86). (as Bishop Jer. Taylor has too justly observed): “Of the Nature of Faith” Polemical Discourses 941–6, where Taylor observes that faith, when taken as an intellectual habit, narrows itself. Taylor does not quote Dante. tu stesso…Dante Paradiso, Canto I. St. 30: Tr H.F.Cary (1814):
With false imagination thou thyself Makest dull; so that thou seest not the thing Which thou hadst seen, had that been shaken off. See CN III Index 1. This passage was quoted at the close of C&S (CC) 185; see 4844 and n. Licet…credet, Presumably Coleridge’s own Latin: “It is permitted that those who have a positive attitude to the Truths of the Faith shall confirm them intellectually through science, but not those who have a negative attitude. For the man who does not believe divine truths unless he is persuaded by scientific facts will never believe them.” Coleridge’s Nusquam (“nowhere”) is a slip for nunquam (“never”). evincatur: “he is convinced”. Coleridge evidently added this as an alternative to persuadeatur: 4787 29.204 Between this entry and the preceding there are two medical prescriptions, possibly in the hand of Gillman or his assistant. They are not indubitably in the same hand as those in N 26, but may be. N 26 was originally James Gillman’s prescription book; see N 26 Gen N. See also Gillmans of Highgate 38–41. But the prescriptions could go back to Bristol days when Coleridge was first using this notebook. The group of entries 4787–4790 was probably all entered before 4785; see 4785n. In writing this and the next two entries Coleridge had to avoid 4784 already on the page. He disguised in Greek a reflection on WW and RS: Tr “About Axiologus [WW] and Husse—[RS] not only in unutterable but also in indifferent matters, lack of freedom paralyses poetic energy, and the Bird with its wings tied…” For WW as Axiologus see CN III 4243 and n; on “Husse” as RS see 4985 and n. Coleridge at times in later life named WW and RS together (e.g. 5037), no doubt partly because they were near each other in the Lakes, but also because, as he drew farther away from them in politics and ecclesiastical matters, they must have seemed more and more alike as public Tory figures. 4788 29.205 This formula is in Coleridge’s own hand. Was it a prescription for an attempt at withdrawal from opium? 4789 29.206 Immediately below the foregoing, written down the right hand side of the page. Was Coleridge visiting an apothecary friend? See also 4790, 4791. 4790 29.207 See the two previous entries. This one is written at the top of the page opposite them. On Peruvian Bark see CN III 4224.
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4791 29.208 This entry, immediately under 29.207 4790, was written after 29.210 4786 was on the page, and squeezed in above it. Possibly 29.204–208 4787–4791 were all written after 29.209 4785; the ink is blacker (29.209 4785 is brownish) and they are written small; 29.209 4785 is set out rather large, with “KANT” on a separate line at the end. 4792 29.211 Vinum colchici: A solution in wine of an alkali derived from colchicum (autumn crocus), used in the treatment of gout, rheumatism, as an expectorant, a sedative, a tonic, in fact so general a remedy as to come under suspicion and contemporary satirical comment. But colchicum was still in the 1960’s prescribed for rheumatism and arthritis. Jonathan Skelton has not been discovered. 4793 29.212 The whole entry, very neatly written, as if transcribed into the notebook for use in some work in hand, is so close to a marginal note in Law’s Behmen (I XV) as to make one wonder whether the entry was copied from it. The pencilled note is on Law’s introductory Life, opposite Böhme’s statement, “For I had a thorough View of the Universe, as in a Chaos, wherein all Things are couched and wrapped up, but it was impossible for me to explain the same”. modern Divine of the orthodoxy now in fashion: See 5240 and n. Toulmin: Joshua Toulmin. See CN I 80 and n on this Unitarian divine, and CL I 407–8 for Coleridge’s early sympathy with him. Toulmin died in 1815. Mant or Doyley: Perhaps Coleridge has reference to the “Introduction to the Old Testament” done by the Rev George D’Oyly and Richard Mant for their edition of The Holy Bible, according to the Authorised Version; with Notes, explanatory and Practical…Prepared and Arranged …Under the Direction of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (4 vols Oxford 1817) [xii-xiv], in which it is stated that all Scripture is inspired, that inspiration does not mean dictation or inspiration in every word or fact, that different parts of the Bible have different degrees of inspiration, that sometimes inspiration merely produced factual correctness, that sometimes it opened up ideas beyond the scope of both writer and reader, and that inspiration generally guaranteed a freedom from “material errour”. As Coleridge says, they nowhere specifically define Inspiration. In a MS fragment (WM 1820) quoted in CN III 4140n, these two are linked in a contemptuous reference as displaying the spirit of Unitarianism=“the dregs of Grotianism”. Entick’s English Dictionary: John Entick (c 1703–73) The New Spelling Dictionary, published first in 1765, ran into many editions up to 1812. 4794 29.54 f34 This entry and the next appear to have been written on pages left blank between 4705 and 4706 in the latter half of 1820. Admittedly an hypothesis here, but one in line with a practice common in these notebooks. On Time: Coleridge seldom announces the theme of an entry, which here appears to be a sketch for a projected work. The second paragraph is the beginning of the lecture “On the Prometheus of Aeschylus”; see the reference to letters to HC in 4839 f120v and n. Coleridge used for his point of departure an article by Carl F.Dornedden, “Erläuterung der aegyptischen Götterlehre durch die griechische in besonderere Rücksicht auf den Ursprung der Mosaischen Kosmogonie und des Mosaischen Gottes”: Eichhorn ABbLitt X 284–378, 548–54; see 4625 and n. Dornedden was the author of the Phamenophis (Göttingen 1797) to which Coleridge refers, but there is no evidence that he here was
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consulting the work. Coleridge follows the order of the article, which makes frequent reference to the book. The three paragraphs on f36v beginning The six days are in a lighter hand and an ink different from those that precede and follow, suggesting that the entry was a cumulative one. Its date is in doubt, nearby entries being datable late in 1820, but if there are references (see f34 below) to an omnibus review article entitled “Egypt, Nubia, Berber, and Senaar” QR XXVIII (Oct 1822—pub Feb 1823) 59–97, these would imply a date c 1823. Religions of the East…Mosaic institutions: See CN III 4317 and n, and in this volume, 4625, 4770, 5219, 4839. The French Savants…Denon, Fourrier, and Dupuis: Dominique Vivant, Baron Denon (1747–1825), Jean Baptiste Joseph Baron Fourier (1768–1830), and Charles Francois Dupuis (1742–1809) were among the French scholars who either accompanied the Napoleonic expeditions into Egypt or were interested in them. Fourier was later among the authors of the famous Description de l’Egypte (20 vols Paris 1809–28), which revolutionized Egyptology. They were given considerable attention in English periodicals at the time; see an important review in QR (Oct 1822) XXVIII 188–96 of J.F.Champollion’s Lettre à M.Dacier on the Egyptian hieroglyphics; see below 5219n. For Coleridge’s general statement that he read Dupuis see below 4839 f122. vindicated the Chronology of Herodotus: Herodotus (II 99, 100, 140, 142) wrote that Menes (or Min) was the first of 330 or 341 mortal monarchs, implying a recorded history of Egypt of 11,340 years. present division of the Zodiac…8000 years’ standing: Cf QR XXVIII 79 and 81. From a document of this rude nature [the so-called great Zodiac at Dendera] no rational conclusion can be drawn as to its antiquity; nor is there any danger that the Scripture chronology can be shaken, even though the illustrious Count Forbin, the Director of Museums, foresaw clearly “the great changes” which the zodiac of Dendera would make “dans la chronologie religieuse”; and though M.Jomard has proved (to his own satisfaction at least) that its antiquity must exceed fifteen thousand years! On p 81, covering the Travels of Robert Richardson: “So far,” says our enraged author, “from believing that the zodiac at Esneh was constructed 7000 or 15,000 years ago, I believe that it is no zodiac at all, and that then the world had no existence….” The relation of Moses: I.e. the Pentateuch; see 4711 and nn. an argument has been grounded…Mosaic Monotheistic Theocracy: Cf Dornedden: Eichhorn ABbLitt X 285: Tr: It is indeed worth investigating to see how Moses, at a time when the most abject idolatry reigned in Egypt, might have come to the idea of a One, and indeed to such an enlightened idea of One God as we find in his
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writings. Indeed, his intent of forming a theocratic state required just such a One God as Moses had. such as collate with the passages in the Prophets: E.g. Isa 19 and 30, Jer 43:8–13 and 46, Ezek 29–42, denouncing Egypt for its idolatry. f34v three passages…one from Herodotus…two from Homer…to Oceanus &? the Ethiopians: Dornedden: Eichhorn ABbLitt X 358–9: Tr: The most ancient Greeks assert the identity of their gods with the gods of Egypt. The god Mendes, says Herodotus for example, is the same as the one we call Pan; Osiris we call Dionysus; Ceres [Isis], Demeter—etc. If therefore this asserted identity be more than mere fantasy, as elsewhere proved [fn in the Phamenophis] the immediate consequence would be that the Egyptian theogony would be a system of the Egyptian calendar, just as the Greek system of gods was calendrical, according to the explanation given [previously in the article] of the frequently mentioned passages in Homer. The Herodotus passage is Bk II 144–5, the Homeric ones Odyssey XII 127–33 and Iliad I 422–4. Dornedden: Eichhorn ABbLitt X 286–94 interpreted Oceanus as the oldest timecycle recognized by man, the passage of day and night, and Zeus as the symbol of the year. He saw the twelve-day journey of Zeus to Oceanus as the twelve lunar months of the year. Since Oceanus was the day-night cycle and the voyage took twelve days one way and twelve days the other, he saw the voyage as representing twelve months of days and twelve months of nights. He found his key to this interpretation in Odyssey (XII 127– 33) describing the herds pastured by Helios on the island of Trinacria, seven herds of cattle and seven of sheep, fifty in each, which never multiply and never diminish. They represent the 3 50 days and 3 50 nights of the lunar year. convenient order of the discussion…What the Sheep & Goats symbolized: I.e. Dornedden’s order—Oceanus, Zeus, the herds of the Sun. Divine Power manifested in “Time & Times & half a Time”: Dan 12:7; 7:25, and Rev 12:14. See 4912 and n. Was Coleridge suggesting that the discussion here might be a clue to an understanding of these passages? did the Polytheism…originate in a Pantheism: See 4839 f121v and n. ίρα γραµµατα: “sacred letters/hieroglyphics”. true order inverted by the Egyptian Priesthood: Dornedden: Eichhorn ABbLitt X 369– 78 traced the manner in which the symbols became things in themselves and the symbolism of the calendar became a “grammatolatry” and worship of the letter. Institutions of Moses…purest part of the Egyptian Temple worship & Ceremonial: Dornedden: Eichhorn ABbLitt X 548–9: Tr: It is at least to Moses’ credit that according to all the evidence in his writings the pure idea of Godhead, by his time must have been obscured in Egypt; he searched it out again from the fragments of Egyptian wisdom and restored it to something like its original form.
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f35 The Essay would conclude: Hartley’s essay? For which Coleridge says he provided considerable materials; see CL V 142–3. Mosaic Sabbath…its relation to…Mendes…Pan: Dornedden: Eichhorn ABbLitt X 551–4 held that Moses’ God created the world in six days and rested the seventh, and thus Moses made use of the old calendary Pan (see 4625), or totality of the week, to renew the divinity of the time-cycle and connect it with the idea of a One. the idea, too glaringly symbolized…Egyptian & Indian, of Incarnation & Redemption: Coleridge possibly is generalising from his reading of G.F.Creuzer Symbolik und Mythologie der alten Völker; see 4832 f61v. Both religions make much of the incarnation of a god, e.g. Osiris and Vishnu, for the purpose of instructing and saving men. ab anteriori: “from beforehand”. Aaron Rod: Ex 7:8–13; when Aaron turned his rod into a serpent, the Egyptian sorcerers did likewise with theirs, but Aaron’s serpent devoured theirs. Cf CM I Bible 70– 1, note 8 on Ex 7:15 to 8:11, and CM II under Hillhouse. psilanthropo-messianic: Believers in a Messiah who is a mere man; see 5384 and n. ad futurum: “referring to the future”. f35v Ωκεανoς, the Author of Phamenophis contends is the…bürgerliche Tag: Dornedden: Eichhorn ABbLitt X 289: Tr: Thus Oceanus, like the civic day (bürgerlicher Tag), is a circular stream. The Homeric or pre-Homeric Greeks calculated the beginning of the civic day from the evening. I think it probable that it expressed the diurnal Motion of the Earth… thus dividing the Hades….: Dornedden: Eichhorn ABbLitt x 289, 328–9 and n makes the point that Oceanus represents the cycle of day beginning in the far west, continuing through the Hades underneath the earth (the Greek Invisible), and reappearing in the east at morning. ab ωĸυς, ωκεoς, and ενος: I.e. from the Greek words meaning “swift” and “year”, or “old”. annuus, vetus: “yearly, old”. Time, forensic & festal: Time civil and religious, connected with the forum and the festivals. Mythological Alogi Amythi: Persons dealing with mythology without respect for the reason for the myth, who reduce myth to mere representation of natural events and do not see in them the expression of another order of ideas. See above 4692, 4767 and nn; also SM:LS (CC) 99 fn 5. f36 involucrum: “wrapper/protective membrane around the chrysalis”. Zendavesta is to be…forgery of Alexandrine Greeks: This view in the work of Sir William Jones, John Richardson, and Christoph Meiners was described and refuted by J.F.Kleuker “Vollständige Untersuchung über die Beschaffenheit, das Zeitalter und den Werth der Zendbücher”: Anhang zum Zend-Avesta (3 vols Leipzig and Riga 1781–3) III 72–111. This work and Kleuker’s translation of Anquetil’s edition of the ZendAvesta (3 vols Riga 1776) are listed in Green SC. Ahriman & Ormuzd…creatures, created by…Zervana Akarene: In the Zend-Avesta; cf Creuzer Symbolik (1819–23) I 697:
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Tr: Certainly Persian doctrine did not stop short at this dualism alone, without any higher principle, as many have previously believed, but it unquestionably recognized a principle originating the duality, a time without bound, Zervane Akarene, the creator of Ormuzd and Ahriman. Cf F.W.J.Schelling Über die Gottheiten υon Samothrace (Stuttgart and Tübingen 1815) 58–9 where the same description is given. See below 5262 and n. Xρoνoς αχρονος: “time free from time/time without bounds”. Ormuzd possesses by birthright…Honover: Creuzer Symbolik (1819–23) I 706: Tr: In the cosmogony of the Persians Ormuzd appears here as the creator of Light. He moved first and spoke the word HONOVER, by means of which all creatures were created and which his mouth now speaks again and again the whole of space. by the Honover Ormuzd can preserve a pure self…interpenetration of the Peetiare Ahriman: Creuzer Symbolik described Ormuzd and Ahriman as dual opposites (Light— Good—Day and Darkness—Evil—Night) ever at war but also as sharers of the creation; cf CN III 4418. Peetiare Ahriman in the Zend Avesta is the source of evil. causa redemptionis: “cause of redemption”. f36v six days Creation of Ormuzd: Cf TT 30 Apr 1823; according to Creuzer Symbolik (1819–23) I 706 the creation by Ormuzd lasted 365 days and proceeded from the heavens to man; Coleridge had the six days perhaps from Kleuker Anhang II 330, commenting on Zend-Avesta I 19: Tr: According to Zendbooks Ormuzd created the world in six days, which period, according to the Persian writers, comprises a year. Thus the writer of the Avesta knew something of the work of the six days. In the BunDehesch, the epitome of the Avesta, there are the following remarkable words: at the creation of the world the heavens were the first thing that Ormuzd made; then followed water, the earth, vegetation, animals, and finally man. Amschaspands: The seven higher spirits, created by Ormuzd, which help in the creation; Creuzer Symbolik (1819–23) I 702–3, 706, and Kleuker Anhang II 300–1. Jehovah Elohim: The “Lord God” of the second creation story (Gen 2:4–25); for Coleridge’s view of the term as a plural see 4667 and n; he connected it with the “seven spirits of God”. Light of the first day…only real substrate: See CN III 4418 and n. Bara…first verse, & then of Man: The Hebrew is boroa, in Gen 1:1 and 1:27; Coleridge errs in saying it is used twice only; it appears again in Gen 1:21 in regard to sea monsters; cf 4625 and n. God created all things potentially: See 4554 and n. 4795 29.55 There is a slight gap between this and 4794; whether or not written at another sitting, this appears to be a diversion from but linked with the subject of the paragraphs preceding it on the page; cf 4623 above.
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A place of vision: I.e. Heaven…& υice-υersâ, Hell, i.e. both being mentally created. 4796 29.71 f48 Coleridge was reading A.J.Silvestre de Sacy “De versione samaritanoarabica librorum Mosis” in Eichhorn ABbLitt X 1–176 esp 60–75. In a letter of 8 Jan 1821 to H.F.Cary, Coleridge said “I flatter myself too, that I have satisfactorily decyphered the import of Eden & the four River-heads into which the River that flowed out of Eden disparted itself’. CL V 134. The four Rivers: Gen 2:10–14. like Cats on a bed of Valerian: See CN I 176. Races (Radices): Coleridge seems to have in mind a secondary and obsolete meaning of race, as “root” from the Latin radix. viz. Phison,=the Inhabitants of Minor Asia…incolumem servavit: De Sacy op cit 60–1 (spellings of proper names vary with de Sacy’s sources): Tr: In the second chapter of Genesis are given the names of the four rivers which flowed out of Eden and of the regions which they watered. The names of these rivers are Phison, Gihon, Hiddekel, and Euphrates. The Phison is said to water the land of Havilah. The land watered by the Gihon is called Cush, while that through which the Hiddekel flowed is called Assyria. In Saadias the first river is called the Nile and it is said to have flowed through the land of Zavila. The second, called Gihan, is placed in Abyssinia. The third, called the Diddjlet—i.e. the Tigris—is said to flow toward the eastern region of Mosul. The fourth is the Euphrates. With the version of Saadias the Samaritan-Arabic agrees regarding the names of the rivers as well as the names of the lands, except that it has Gihoun for Gihan and the land of the Negroes instead of Abyssinia. The SamaritanArabic translator does not here appear to have followed in the steps of the Samaritan version, for with the exception of the Euphrates, on which all agree, the Samaritan version is at total variance, and gives names of rivers and regions not to be found otherwise and unheard of elsewhere. Nor can it be said that Saadias and the Samaritan-Arabic translator hit on the names of these rivers and lands by chance. It remains only for us to suspect that the Samaritan-Arabic translator followed the steps of Saadias. It seems, however, to have been accepted among the Samaritans that the name Phison belonged to the Egyptian river Nile: for in their liturgies, as Edmund Castell points out, it is very frequently written: May God keep you safe from evil, who preserved Moses safe from the River Phison. f48v VIth Chap. of Gen. V. 2 and 4: “That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose…. There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.” AV. The Samaritan & Samaritano-Arabian Version…: De Sacy: Eichhorn ABbLitt 72–3: Tr: In Genesis, the sixth chapter and the second and fourth verses, it is said that the “sons of God” joined in marriage with the “daughters of
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man” and thus gave rise to giants. In both places the Samaritan version has “sultans” for “God” and in one place has “daughters of the common people” for “daughters of men.” Similarly the translator of the SamaritanArabic: filii Sultanorum [“sons of Sultans”] and filiae Hominis [“daughters of man”]—[Coleridge’s Filii Hominis is a slip.] In these places our translator does not appear to have followed Saadias: for in the version of Saadias, if one follows the reading of the Polyglot Pentateuch of Constantinople, in both places there is filii nobilium [“sons of the nobles”] and filiae plebeiorum [“daughters of the common people”]; if one follows the London Polyglot Bible, in the first it is “sons of the nobles” and “daughters of the common people,” and in the second “sons of God,” keeping the Hebrew word, Elohim, and “daughters of Cain.” and in the 3rd Vers….: De Sacy: Eichhorn ABbLitt X 73 continuing, on Gen 6:3: Tr: In the same chapter, verse three, the Hebrew reads lou-yadon ruakhi b’adam leoulom, which many interpret thus: “my spirit shall not always dwell with men,” and thus also Saadias, according to the London Polyglot. The Samaritan-Arabic is otherwise, reading…non recondetur quasi in vagina donum meum in homine in perpetuum [“my gift will not always be contained, as it were, in the sheath in man"]. Saadias partly agrees with this version according to the Polyglot Pentateuch of Constantinople, for in this the reading is…“my spirit will not always be contained, as it were, in the sheath.” The scholion, which is found in both our codices of the Samaritan-Arabic version, declares that the words “my gift” are to be understood of the soul, that indeed the words imply by metaphor the conjunction of soul with body. Gen. II. v. 7: “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” Materia Substrata: “Underlying Matter”. Natura Naturans: See 4843 f117v Lux=vis distinguens cum Tenebris,=vi unienti abdita, ut natura naturata: “Light=the distinguishing power with darkness=the concealed unifying power, as created nature”; for Coleridge’s view of light as the life power, see CN III 4418, and in this volume 4558, 4648, 4625 and nn above. opus Dei proprium: “God’s own proper work”. a period of 120 years: Gen 6:3. v. 21, C. 8: “And the Lord smelled a sweet savour; and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I smite again any more every living thing, as I have done.” Sam.-Arab. Version…: De Sacy: Eichhorn ABbLitt x 66–7: Tr: In the same book, the eighth chapter and the twenty-first verse, these words are written: “And God said in his heart,” of which there have been
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many different renderings. The translators of the Septuagint have διανοηείς i.e. “reflecting”; Onkelos has “with his Word”; the Samaritan version has “in secret”. Saadias however has “to his prophet”. The Samaritan-Arabic translator has transferred this same meaning to his version, no doubt to avoid attributing a heart to God…i.e. familiari suo “to his servant”. f49 δια NOY of Heraclitus: “through MIND”; not Heraclitus, but cf SM:LS (CC) App D 95 where in quoting Heraclitus Coleridge substituted divine νóοι (minds) for νóµοι (laws). metaphorice, per Prolepsin, a re inferiori: “metaphorically, by an Anticipation, from an inferior thing”. Sermoni suo: “to his Word”. The Logos: See e.g. above 4554, and below 5297 and nn. 4797 29.72 f49 Reasoning by Consequences: An old bête noire; see e.g. CN III 4184n and The Friend reference there; see also 5117. It is in fact Coleridge’s prime logical objection to Utilitarianism. Unitarians…Psilanthropists: See also CN III 3244n. the Socinian may be…a Christian. The Unitarian, on the contrary: Cf 4618, 5213, where the Socinian was less favourably regarded; on the Unitarian see 4857, 5351 and nn. f49v Oxyds of Mercury: Used in antiseptic ointments against skin infections of various kinds. f50 Quakers: See an early conflict of feelings and opinion about them in a letter of 7 Dec 1802: CL II 893; also The Friend (CC) index under Quaker(s). Also CN III 3830. Coleridge’s point here, about Quaker passivism being unacceptable as a universal but humanly and individually valuable, typifies a characteristic mode of his social thinking. [ad] hominem…a doctrinâ: “to a particular man…from the doctrine”. an error in fluxions: In April 1819 Coleridge tried to borrow an encyclopaedia article, “Fluxions”: CL IV 936. His own copy of A New Treatise of Fluxions by Thomas Simpson (1737), now lost, appeared in Blackwell SC No 513 (1945). Coleridge described Zeno’s error in fluxions in 4522 and in Lect 3 P Lects (CC) ff70–77, without using in either place the term fluxions. (See below in this n, on Zeno.) The error involves confusing infinite and finite; the debate seems to rage between those who do and those who do not regard fluxions as “meer Velocities” and think they are following Newton in so doing, the latter saying that there is an advantage in thinking of fluxions as “the Magnitudes they would, uniformly, generate in a given finite Time” and that Newton himself, though he “defines Fluxions to be the Velocities of Motions, yet He hath Recourse to the Increments, or Moments, generated in equal Particles of Time, in order to determine those Velocities; which he afterwards teaches us to expound by finite Magnitudes of other Kinds: Without which… we could have but very obscure Ideas of the higher Orders of Fluxions”. Simpson (ed 1750) Preface vi-vii. Zeno: See CN I 1193n, where a note on Tennemann is quoted; also CN III 4351, 4358, 4522 above, and nn. f50v ejusdem generis…ejusdem naturæ et gradûs: “of the same class …of the same nature and degree”.
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King James’s No Bishop No King!: The well-known riposte is recorded by Thomas Fuller in his Church History (1655) Chap X. I of James I. Coleridge (and Lamb) loved this work, which Coleridge annotated in Basil Montagu’s copy in 1824, 1829. Dr H.More’s, Glanville’s, & Jung alias Stilling’s No Ghosts, no God: Coleridge had long been familiar with Joseph Glanville’s Saducismus triumphatus, the first edition of which contained a letter of Henry More, the 3rd (1700) a letter to him about the ghostdrummer “the demon of Tedworth”. More tells (out of Webster’s Witchcraft, which he denominates “a weak and impertinent piece”, but the anecdote all the more telling for that) of the ghost of Anne Walker, and the two men who were executed for her murder. More and Glanvil argue that the belief “that there are bad Spirits…will necessarily open a door to the belief that there are good ones, and lastly that there is a God” (1700): “Dr H. More’s Letter” p 9. Johann Heinrich Jung on the title-page of his Theorie der Geister-kunde (Nuremberg 1808) is described as “genannt Stillung”. Coleridge’s annotation on his copy (2) in the BM sufficiently expresses his opinion: “It is perhaps necessary that the same total quantity of Folly should exist in all ages; but differently distributed. If so, I should fairly infer that all the Hum-brummery of all the old Grannams of the preceding Century had been condensed into this credulous cock-sure Dotard of a GhostMonger”. 4798 29.73 The first and last sentences come from Emanuel Swedenborg “De verbo & ejus sensu spirituali seu interno ex arcanis coelestibus”: De equo albo de quo in Apocalypsi, Cap. XIX., et deinde υerbo et ejus sensu spirituali seu interno, ex arcanis coelestibus (1758). Coleridge wrote an approving note on this passage in his copy, in the BM. Quod absque ideis…: De equo albo I I (var). “That without ideas of the understanding, and of the thought thence derived, on any subject, there can be no perception”. Tr (unsigned) Miscellaneous Theological Works (American Swedenborg Society, NY 1857) 300. Essays on Method—Friend Vol. 3: Essays IV-IX “On the Principles of Method”: The Friend (CC) I 448–524. f51v id υidelicet, in quo idea sive cogitatum factum est: “that is, that in which an idea or a thought is realised” On Coleridge’s interest in the discreet use of the word Fact, see 5404 and n. quod υerbum…non est credere: Swedenborg 11 (var): That [therefore] the word can be understood by none but a rational man; for to believe anything without an idea thereof and without a rational view of the subject is only to retain in the memory words destitute of all life and perception and affection, which is in fact not believing. Tr op cit. 4799 29.74 Hints of a Letter to Mr Tulk: Charles Augustus Tulk was a founder of the Swedenborg Society in London. He and Coleridge after Sept 1817, when they first met, corresponded at length on Swedenborgian matters; see also 5102 and n. perusal of…Suedom.: Coleridge often used the Latin form of the name, Suedomontanus, given on the title pages. His first strenuous reading of Swedenborg seems to have begun in January 1820. See the letters to C.A. Tulk dated [Jan 1820], 20
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Jan 1820, [12 April 1820], and [16 Jul 1820] CL V 9–10, 17–19, 40–1, 86–91; and most pertinent to this entry, another of 12 Feb 1821, also to him, CL V 136. Homo internus: “the internal man”; a reference to the “internal sense” or “inner, spiritual meanings” of the Bible in Swedenborg’s intuitional interpretations. Yπαρ=Yπνος(2+αγρυπια(2×aperitio interni Hominis…et vere audiunt: “Vision=Sleep+wakefulness, interpenetrating each other, beget the opening of the internal man and then spiritual apparitions, not however, for this reason always or necessarily rational, any more than in all communications of this world: indeed in the case of the opening of the internal man this depends always on the moral and intellectual condition of the recipient. Those in error see and hear falsehoods; nevertheless they truly see and truly hear them”. To call no man Master…: Matt 23:9–10; Swedenborg made this express declaration in e.g. Doctrine of the Holy Scripture § 51 and in Apocalypse Explained § 631. Ideæ Rationis (veritatis eternæ): “Ideas of Reason (of eternal truth)” relativè ad sæculum et Individuum: “relatively to the era and to the individual”. Ideæ Cogitationis…ad singula: “Ideas of the Understanding; that is, theorems through which some law is discerned in particular cases and applied to particular cases”. distinction which Suedom…Books themselves: See De equo albo (ed cit) 22, where Swedenborg distinguished between the books of the Bible having the “internal sense” and those not having it, a passage annotated by Coleridge. Abverbs (a Verbo Boni et Veri divergentia): “departures from the Word (deviating from the Verb/Word the root of the Good and the True”), with a pun on adverb. pars magna forsan υel etiám maxima: “a great part perhaps or even the greatest”. 4800 28.57 The entry is datable 13 Feb 1821 from the reference to the ministerial majority of 120, and the voting figures for a vote in the House of Commons on the motion to restore “her Majesty’s Name to the Liturgy” 13 Feb 1821 in H. of C. See 4805. See also Coleridge’s letter postmarked 12 Feb 1821 in which many phrases in this entry are used: CL V 138. Clerisy: If the dating is correct, this is the second recorded use of Coleridge’s coinage of this word, (it appears in the letter cited above of the day before) basic to his main thesis in C&S; see C&S (CC) 46 and n. A brief gloss on the point being made here is found in TT for 10 April 1832: “All harmony is founded on a relation to rest—on relative rest…. The clerisy of a nation, that is, its learned men, whether poets, or philosophers, or scholars, are these points of relative rest. There could be no order, no harmony of the whole, without them.” See above 4704 and n. Longanimity: A nonce-word, not in OED. 4801 28.58 Early in 1821 the possibility of a Neapolitan revolution was growing critical; it originated in secret treaties in 1815 between the King of Naples, and the monarchs of Austria, France (?), England (?), Spain (?) by which, as Lord Holland put it, “Naples was bound not to make in her government any alterations injurious to the interests of monarchy, or any change contrary to the system which the Emperor of Austria adopted in his Italian states”. When Neapolitans found the bond irksome, Austria threatened war, and a conference of royal heads issued a circular in November 1820, drafted by Castlereagh, to the effect that they would not interfere with whatever action Austria took, on the grounds of disapproval not only of the Neapolitan revolution but all
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revolutions. By liberals, this was felt to be “a crusade of kings against the cause of humanity and liberty”. An Reg for 1821 (1822) 8–12. Lord Holland’s narration in the House of Lords was part of the debate in reply to the King’s Speech at the opening of Parliament, 23 Jan 1821. Holland asked whether England had protested to Austria and her allies against their interference with the liberties of independent states, especially Naples. On 17 Feb 1821 he spoke again, at even greater length. a good Sonnet: I.e. an idea for a sonnet? See 4805. change of ministry: The Tory Liverpool Ministry, in power since 1812, was under considerable attack through 1819–21 as seen in such demonstrations as Peterloo, the unpopularity of the repressive Six Acts, the Cato St Conspiracy, the public sympathy for Queen Caroline, and widespread suspicion that international agreements were secret because not always in the public interest. See also 4805. 4802 28.59 Cf CN III 3872 and n. On the derivation of Rivales, “people sharing the same stream”, see C&S (CC) 117 and n. 4803 28.60 The Queen’s Prosecutors: In George IV’S public legal contest with Queen Caroline, Coleridge, with perhaps the majority in England, was on the Queen’s side; if not enthusiastic about her, he, like many others, disapproved of the Bill of Pains and Penalties, and the conduct of the divorce proceedings instigated by the Government, the “Queen’s Trial”. See 4826 and n. If Coleridge is thinking of specific prosecutors, possibly they are Sidmouth and Castlereagh (4720) and Eldon (4827 and n). As G.M.Trevelyan puts it, “The subjects of the land were in some doubt as to the Queen’s character, but in none at all about the King’s”. History of England (1926) 623. the far-famed Magisterial Bard…Maribus: William Lily, in his Rudimenta grammatices, published from 1529, gave rules reprinted in successive Latin grammars including An Introduction to Latin Grammar for the use of Christ’s Hospital (3rd ed 1785) on the genders of nouns. The rules were entitled, from the first words, Propria quæ Maribus, i.e. “Proper names which [are assigned to] males [you may call masculine]”. Dux….Sacerdos: “A leader, an Outlaw, an Heir or Heiress, an Outlaw: [nouns] compounded of frons [a forehead] such as bifrons [one with two faces] a guardian: an Ox [or Bull or Cow] a thief, a swine, and a priest or priestess” [these nouns being common to the two genders]. But this section is not in Christ’s Hospital grammar. 4804 28.61 Imitation of the passage: A projected poem? Mids[ummer] N[ights] Dr[ea]m on the fatality of true Love: Act I i lines 141 foll? Lysander. Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,/ War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it,/ Making it momentary as a sound,/ Swift as a shadow, short as any dream,/ Brief as the lightning in the collied night./ That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,/ And ere a man hath power to say, “Behold!”/ The jaws of darkness do devour it up:/ So quick bright things come to confusion. Hermia. If then true lovers have been ever cross’d,/ It stands as an edict in destiny. …
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The letters are half-cancelled or altered confusingly; the intention was probably ST (ligatured) T (cancelled), and the Greek capital Sigma, i.e. “STC”, under slight concealment. Wordsworth; more usually Coleridge wrote Aξιολογος, as in CN III 4243, a less derogatory word. It may be significant that no name is attached to hopeless Hymen, or to Disease. 4805 28.62 W. Sc.: Walter Scott dealt with the Earl of Leicester in Kenilworth (published Jan 1821), alternately making him treacherous villain and dupe, always very much a noble lord. That Scott did not own to being the author of Kenilworth or any of the Waverley novels until Feb 1827 does not alter the dating or interpretation of this entry. By the end of March 1820 Coleridge had spotted him in Ivanhoe (1819), because of his use of three lines from the then unpublished poem of his own, The Knight’s Tomb, quoted to Scott by Frere. See Gillman Life 277 and a Cornell MS fragment in CL V 380–1. On Coleridge’s opinion of Scott at about this time (Scott of the King’s party, had been made a baronet 30 March 1820) see a letter to Allsop of 8 April 1820 (CL V 32–5). It is not clear from another letter to Allsop two days later whether Coleridge declined an invitation from his neighbour, Charles Matthews, to meet Scott, or whether in fact he relented to avoid misunderstanding. See CL V 38–40. Debates in both Houses of P[arliament] on the Austrian & Lord Cast[lereagh]’s Circulars respecting Naples: See above 4720, 4800, 4801 and nn. The accusations of subornation and perjury were being tossed back and forth at this time on both the domestic (royal) and international stage. the Milan Commission was set up late in 1817 to investigate the personal habits of Caroline, then Princess of Wales. It sat for two years collecting testimonies, unsworn and not cross-examined, in a Green Bag, which became a scandal centre and a mine for pamphleteers. The Commission recommended even further investigations. On 5 July 1820 the Bill of Pains and Penalties was introduced by Lord Liverpool in the Lords, the “Trial” began on 19 Aug with Brougham defending the Queen, and with adjournments it lasted until October when the Bill was withdrawn. Lordly Smiles: Note Guilty Smiles 4801. Is there here also, in the age of Cruickshank and caricature, a cartoon in mind? 4806 28.63 zöo-magnetic influx: See 4512, 4887, 4908 and nn, also Inq Sp § 30, 31, 32, 40 for similar lines of reasoning. The entry is a good example of Coleridge’s attempts, in many contexts, to apply logic to prejudices, whether of credulity or incredulity. With the last sentence cf “Incredulity is but Credulity seen from behind, bowing and nodding assent to the Habitual and Fashionable”. LS (CC) 81. 4807 28.64 improved Proverb: The old proverb is, “Children and fools must not play with edged tools”. 4808 28.65 Moriae Encomium (Oxford 1668) contains the commentary of Gerard Listrius, the letters of Erasmus to Martin Dorp, some additional letters, and Erasmus’s answer to Luther. A copy of this edition marked as Coleridge’s appears in Wordsworth LC; this entry supports the hypothesis in CN III 4262n that Coleridge used it. The passage (228–9) reads
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Tr: [Plato] defines Philosophy to be a contemplation of death, because it takes off the mind from visible and corporeal objects, than which death does no more. And therefore, as long as the Soul useth the Organs of the Body in that right manner it ought, so long it is said to be in good state and condition; but when, having broke its fetters, it endeavours to get loose, and assayes, as it were, a flight out of that prison that holds it in, they call it madness; and if this happens through any distemper, or indisposition of the organs, then, by the common consent of every man, ‘tis down-right madnesse. Any yet we see such kind of men foretell things to come, understand Tongues and Letters they never learnt before, and seem, as it were, big with a kind of Divinity. Nor is it to be doubted but that it proceeds from hence, that the mind, being somewhat at liberty from the infection of the body, begins to put forth it self in its native vigour. And I conceive ‘tis from the same cause that the like often happens to sick men a little before their death, that they discourse in strain above mortality, as if they were inspir’d. Agen, if this happens upon the score of Religion, though perhaps it may not be the same kind of madness, yet ‘tis so near it that a great many men would judge it no better, especially when a few inconsiderable people shall differ from the rest of the world in the whole course of their life. Erasmus The Praise of Folly tr John Wilson (1668) ed Mrs P.S.Allen (Oxford 1913) 178– 9. Epopsy: “clairvoyance”; see CN III 4449 f30v and above 4521 and nn. So Plato: Moriae Encomium 229–30 and n. Erasmus cited the Allegory of the Cave, Bk VII of the Republic, and used it as an analogy of the many who see the shadows as reality, the one who sees beyond, and the derision of each for the other. So St Paul, Corinth: Moriae Encomium 231 and n. Erasmus referred to I Cor 7 [29– 31] as an example of Paul’s similar looking beyond temporal things and dealing only grudgingly with this physical world. Allsop records Coleridge as saying, “I think the Praise of Folly the most pleasant Book of Erasmus”. Allsop II 190: TT (CC) [II 389] 4809 28.66 ff63–64 Dr Parrot: In Archiv (see 4512) I ii 174–80, a long article on “Coup d’oeil sur le Magnétisme animal” by G.F. Parrot (1816) was reviewed by D.G.Kieser. Coleridge, translating, quotes from I ii 177. The article that followed in Archiv I 181–8 (see above 4592n) was a review of Gerbrand Bruining Schediasma de Mesmerismo ante Mesmerum, in quo disquiritur, num υeteres Aegyptii eorumque coloni ad Pontum Euxinum Graeci, Romani atque alii, πολυθρύλλητον illud inventum Mesmeri, quod magnetismum animalem υocant, reapse cognitum habuerint eoque usi fuerint? (Groningen…1815). The review would make Coleridge wish to read the book—arguing as it did that the ancient prophets and seers were affected by some of the same physical and psychological manifestations as men now—if animal magnetism is a human function it must always have existed—at least if different in quality, an analogous function (187). f64v Says Ghert: P.G.van Ghert had the first and only article in Archiv II i 1–188, continued in Archiv II ii 1–51; it was taken from his Dagboek eener magnetische Behandeling (Amsterdam 1814) as stated in the first footnote. Van Ghert was described
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as secretary of the Royal Mineralogical Society of Holland in Jena, and a member of many learned societies, hence not gullible or a charlatan. He gave a daily report from 20 Dec 1809 of the case of Mlle.B. In recording his work with her he said that he was astonished at her freedom of speech in sleep, at which times she spoke of things she would have blushed at when awake. He was able to call in some impartial witnesses who either had doubted the reality of animal magnetism altogether or who didn’t believe in things mysterious. Coleridge condenses Archiv II i 20–1: Tr: On the other hand, I hold myself duty bound, regarding the clairvoyance of the patient, to add that she very often forgot herself in these sessions, and often gave descriptions of places and persons that were entirely false and erroneous, which perverseness she then always attributed to the levity of mistrust of those who put questions to her in these trances, or who enquired after one or another whom they wished to see. handy: see 4713 and n. f65 all my eye gentry: The sceptics who say “All my eye and Betty Martin” (see 5217n) to every new concept. See CL VI 564n for Coleridge’s explanation of the phrase. Philalethist: Not in OED: “lover of truth”. Veridictions: Not in OED; “true sayings”. f66 Newton’s aphorism: In “Regula IV. Regulae Philosophandi” Bk III of the Principia: Opera ed Horsley (5 vols 1799–85) III 5: Tr: In experimental philosophy we are to look on propositions inferred by induction from phaenomena as accurately or very nearly true, notwithstanding any contrary hypotheses that may be imagined till such time as other phaenomena occur, by which they may either be made more accurate or liable to exceptions. Tr Andrew Motte (1729) revised by F.Cujori (Berkeley 1934). The entry is an expression of Coleridge’s attempt to be fair and neutral in the contemporary controversy over Animal Magnetism; see 4512 and n, and Inq Sp § 30. 4810 28.67 The unintended Couplet was used with some variations in “First Advent of Love”: PW I 443 where it is dated “?1824”. The three quotations are separated by short lines, but the appearance is of all having been jotted down at the same time. Coleridge’s edition of Philip Sidney’s Arcadia is not known. (He owned a German translation, now in BM.) Here he was reading the early pages of Book i: “as her breath is more sweet then a gentle South-westwind, which comes creeping over flowrie fields and shadowed waters in the extreme heat of Summer:…hath not the onely love of her made us (being sillie ignorant shepherds) rais up our thoughts above the ordinarie level of the world, so as great clerks do not disdain our conference?…they both perceived a thing which floated, drawing neerer and neerer to the bank; but rather by the favorable working of the Sea, then by any self-industrie.” (1662) With the last, cf Coleridge’s personal observation of the working of the sea in CN II 2014 ff48v–49.
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See 4669n; were Lamb and Coleridge discussing Sidney at this time? Lamb’s essay, “Some Sonnets of Sir Philip Sidney” refers to “the noble images, passions, sentiments, and poetical delicacies of character, scattered all over the Arcadia…” L Works II 248. The essay, defending Sidney against Hazlitt’s criticisms in his lectures of 1820, appeared in the London Magazine for Sept 1823. 4811 29.75 f52 fusion as disparate from solution: In both fusion and solution the solid state yields to the fluid state, i.e. coherence (CN III 4433) decreases. If one accepts caloric as the matter of heat (see 5144 and n), then caloric is an imponderable fluid, and melting or solution in caloric=fusion, just as solution in water=solution. But Coleridge considers fluid material caloric as fictional, regarding it as a power. Caloric?+Dilation?: Hydrogen (see 4555) is Dilation; cf CN III 4420, and caloric causes bodies to expand. f52v Infusibility: At this point it becomes clear that Coleridge’s questions are being mentally directed to Steffens’s arguments in the Beyträge 257 foll. For use of the Beyträge in this period see above 4628 and n. Steffens states (259) that there are two main ways of looking at nature—either one follows nature’s development from step to step, which shows us what gradations nature goes through but not how, or one considers each step as a higher power of preceding ones, and builds on this eine Theorie der NaturEvolution. frozen Quicksilver: The reference is pertinent to coherence as a key in the classification of metals, and mercury as a fluid metal is therefore particularly significant; see Coleridge’s earlier discussion of this point. =C.: i.e. Gr[avitation predominating over] L[ight]=C[arbon]. —Color—Oxydation.—contractive Fire?: Steffens in his Grundzüge (53) says that as oxygen and hydrogen show the degree of divergence under the power of gravity, so colours show the degree of divergence under the power of light. Coleridge is concerned to incorporate colours in his transcendental chemistry of powers. the Nature of Hydrogen…Nitrogen…Carbon: See 4555 and n. For Steffens, “the magnetic axis, in so far as it marks the maximum of coherence, is the principle of the evolution theory, because in coherence lies the germ of all development”. Thus the N-S polarity in the “Compass of Nature”, corresponding to Carbon-Nitrogen (see 4555 and n, and Steffens Beyträge passim) is for Steffens the axis of coherence and the key to geological evolution. See e.g. Steffens (259) where, having considered the metals in their aspect of coherence, or density, he said: Tr: It is however a very noteworthy and significant relationship that the melting point, i.e. the point where the metal can display an indifferent fluidity, will always rise, so that on the one hand the power of attraction, on the other of Repulsion, will become stronger, until in the coherent sequence it is lost in complete infusibility, and in the less coherent sequence is impeded through earlier volatilization.
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But the power of repulsion, in its purest manifestation, appears as nitrogen; the power of attraction, in its purest manifestation, appears as carbon. Steffens then proceeded to discuss nitrogen and carbon as representatives of magnetism in chemical processes. Coleridge’s discussion of infusibility, and fusion as disparate from so-lution, pursues his refinement of the classification of powers through a critical reading of Steffens’s geology of powers. Calcium, in Carbonate of Lime (f52v) and Silex are geological representatives of the two main series of the fundamental polarity. The chemical and magnetic polarities are formally identical: the chemical, Carbon-Nitrogen, the magnetic North-South. Carbonic Acid: Coleridge had just referred to the antagonism of Contr[action] to Attract[ion]. A chemical analysis of Carbonic Acid gives carbon and oxygen, exponents (see 4555) of attraction and contraction respectively. Hence the significance of Carbonic Acid in these series. the precious stones, ex. gr. Diamond…: All are forms or analogies of silex, with the corresponding polarity. Coleridge was asking for, and not receiving from Steffens, an explanation, through the Powers, of the genetic relations between the precious stones. the Stoffs have their essence wholly in the Powers…basic energies of Attraction…: On Attraction see 4544, 4555, 4556, 4569 and nn. The whole entry is a part of Coleridge’s continuing discussion of chemistry as illustrative of the dynamic principle. 4812 29.76 f52v Coleridge’s annotated copy of Swedenborg’s Prodromus is in HEHL. Epopsy: See above e.g. 4808 and n. places as the ultimum…esse Deum et Deum esse infinitum: Selected from § 6 Prodromus 82 var: We have now to show in conclusion, that the infinite is the cause of the finite, and the infinite God, the builder of the universe…. There is in fact a tacit consent, of a tacit conclusion of the soul, to the being of God as well as to the infinity of God.… James John Garth Wilkinson tr Swedenborg Outlines of a Philosophical Argument on the Infinite (1847). f55 curiosa felicitas: “a careful felicity”. Petronius 118.5, of Horace. “hoc dictari…et quasi admonitâ”: Following from above, Prodromus § 6: “…this is dictated, I say, partly by the soul in its own free essence, partly by the soul as instructed and advised by the diverse innumerable effects presented in the world….” Coleridge inserts after “free essence” ubi Voluntas Ratione subest: “when Will is subordinate to Reason”. the following sentence…(p, 83, 84): (The words corresponding to those quoted by Coleridge are underlined.) …not unlike reason in the soul, which comes partly from the soul and partly from the body, although we do not know whence it comes, because we do not know the state of the soul. Nor unlike the involuntary and
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congenital actions that take place in the body, which proceed spontaneously without the body being aware of them; such for instance as the innumerable internal motions of the frame, of the senses, of the muscles, of the heart, of the fluids; or such as the issue or procession of the efficient causes designed to set the muscles in motion at the will of the soul, or in obedience to predetermined conclusions. The body is indeed unaware of the grounds from which these and similar actions come, and whether they are determined to motion by any cause or none; (although the senses see that the motion exists and perceive that it is constant;) and hence they appear to originate spontaneously and without the participation of the body. And there are numberless other phenomena whose effects we know but cannot explain the cause; for example, harmonies of many kinds, where natural perfection is almost attained, which arrest us at once, surprize us into praise, raise smiles of delight whenever we see or hear them, and yet of their cause we may be said to be ignorant; although they have a cause, at least in a perfection and harmony either truly natural or that corresponds with the perfection and harmony of our individual nature. We give these illustrations simply by way of comparison, to show that there are many things in our own organization that we derive from a source different from either the soul or its harmonic connection with the body; many things, therefore, which seem to happen spontaneously. And so also it may be with that tacit consent and feeling of our souls, which dictates to us the existence and infinity of God. Tr ibid. Democritus’s theory of the origin of the Belief of Deity: Tennemann I 292–3 quotes Sextus Empiricus Adversus mathematicos IX § 24 and 19, for the theory of Democritus that the origin of ideas of gods is certain aggregates of atoms with which the universe is filled, or rather images and effluences from such aggregates which touch men in various ways that affect their minds and thus are able to evoke ideas. The Conclusion…p. 85, 86…is admirable: Prodromus § 6: But it is scarcely philosophical to derive from the soul a spontaneity corresponding in character with the involuntary power in the body or with the harmony and perfection existing in things and proportions. And yet it cannot be denied that there is that in man, as man, provided he enjoy the use of reason, which acknowledges an omnipotent God, an omnipresent and all-provident Deity; it seems therefore to be innate, and to be a power or action of reason, when not on the one hand troubled too much by its own ideas, nor on the other hand too destitute of all cultivation and development. Tr ibid. Vi rationali sriverat homo, numen dari: “Man would have known by the Power of reason that a deity existed”. Coleridge’s addition.
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laxè et abusive: “loosely and wrongly”, i.e. catachrestically, from the Greek-derived equivalent of abusive. per cogitata discursiva: “by discursive thoughts”. per discursiones animi: “by discursions of the Understanding”. per idola et discursiones animi: “by images and discursions of the Understanding”. Coleridge’s footnote is written at the bottom of f53, half of which has been left blank at the end of the entry. 4813 29.77 The reference is to Oken’s Zoologie in Naturgeschichte V (II—IV not yet published), the entry being mainly verbatim from Coleridge’s marginal notes, commenting on Oken’s derivation of animal organisms from protoplasmic slime upwards according to their sense organs. See also 4719, 4722–24, 4726 and nn. Although there is no reason to believe that Coleridge read Oken’s voluminous work in sequence, the divisions being clear, (Vol I Mineralogie (1813), Vols II, III, IV Botanik (1825, 1826, 1826), and Vols V and VI Zoologie (1815, 1816)—it may be worth noticing that the N 29 references here are to Vol v, Zoologie, as in 4984, the N 28 references to Vol VI. The earliest known date for Coleridge’s reading of Oken’s Naturgeschichte is 30 Sept 1820, the date on his copy in the BM; see 4724n. f53v Darmsinn: “Der Darm bildet sich aus zum Darmsinn, Zunge,” as Coleridge translated it from Oken’s v 8 the “Gut-sense”; the pattern is repeated for lungs and nose (“Die Lunge bildet sich aus zum Lungensinn, Nose”); flesh, bone and ear; nerve and eye. Psilo-somatism: Mere materialism, by analogy with “psilosophy”, merely concerned with the body. Oken’s scheme: Oken ranked organisms according to their principal organs and senses, making the eye and sight the highest as discussed above in 4719 f54 and n. He also equated sensibility and sensation, a distinction that is important to Coleridge. See also TL 58. Sight observes external surfaces and electricity is the surface power, corresponding to irritability, the predominant power in insects with their impressively large compound eyes; see also TL 59, 71, 79, 90–1. of the electrical Form, the Power of Breadth & Surface: Schelling described the correspondence of electricity and surface or breadth in his Zeitschrift für spekulativ Physik (1800) I 119; Coleridge’s heavily annotated copy is in the BM.Schelling stated that the second moment of the construction of matter, at which the second dimension joins the first, is indicated in nature by electricity. The first dimension is length, the second breadth or surface. Steffens in his Beyträge (275 foll.) presented a hierarchy of living things organized according to powers similar to Coleridge’s in TL. See 4513n. In attacking Oken in this entry, Coleridge is bringing arguments to bear from Steffens and Schelling, some of which are elaborated at length in TL 70 foll. R.Southey. This hitherto unrecorded experiment was described by Coleridge in the same note on Oken’s Zoologie: Naturgeschichte V 8–11. See CM IV under Oken. f54 p. 12 Organic Atoms: In the Introduction to Vol V of the Naturgeschichte (12) Oken described the “Elemententhiere” as “Schleimpuncte”, as Coleridge says, “true atoms”. Oken goes on to describe how all four elements meet in one atomic point, which he called “ein Mil”. Fressende Puncte (“voracious points”) was Coleridge’s mocking adaptation at v 29. Oken in his ponderous way said (V 12) the Infusoria must have a
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German name suited to their smallness, so he names them “Mile”: Milette is, characteristically, Coleridge’s. (p. 51. Hydra…of Trembley): Abraham Trembley (1710–84) was puzzled (in 1740) by the regenerative powers of the hydra, which Oken notices on this page. “But the marvel is not very great.” Ein Korallen-stamm…ein Haufen Mile!: “A piece of coral is a mass of these minute organisms, so is the human body” Coleridge summarizes Oken’s theory. Clio Borealis: The elements in the description are in Oken V 324–5. 4814 29.78 For the chemical symbols here see App A. With 4813 this entry appears to belong in an 1821 sequence after the reading of Brande Manual (4566 foll), Steffens Beyträge (4652 foll) and after a subsequent reading, or possibly a re-reading, of Oken. f54v “The most pregnant historic Symbol on Earth is a Coral Bank on a Stratum of Coal”, Coleridge wrote in 1818; see CN III 4432 and n where it is clear that his interest in the living tendencies in what is generally regarded as inanimate nature goes back to his earliest fascination with chemistry. Here he is seeking to apply and refine his dynamic system of powers in nature as a productive and generative sequence and focusing on the transitions between levels in the hierarchy of powers—e.g. magnetism, electricity, galvanism; see CN III 4226 and 4555. Oken’s collection of facts of natural history and his development theory, and Steffens’s presentation of geology as a science of powers not only “physical” but “vital” (e.g. sensibility, irritability) in which chemical substances evolve and may be correlated with vegetation and animalisation, are both present in this entry. See 4813 and n. Coral as plant-animal leaving mineral residues was naturally a focus of interest; See also TL 70–2. A slime…new Coral: Again summarizing Oken in Zoologie: Naturgeschichte V 57–8. Steffens too had said the first form of animal life is a slime and traced in Beyträge 280–2 a development from undifferentiated green matter to a gelatinous substance, then polypi, then coral; his interest lay chiefly in the question of the dividing line between organic and inorganic. Steffens identified the residues of animal life as calcareous, and of vegetable life as silex (ibid 38–48). In his Pt I, nitrogen is the exponent of animality, carbon (c) of vegetation. Like Coleridge, Steffens was interested also in the development of individuality, or as Coleridge has it, “the principle of individuation”. TL 42. animal life, that thus lives by dying. See CN III 4434. the detrusion of Lime…extrudes Carbon; Corals deposit carbonates—a living process analogous to the extrusion of carbon dioxide in expiration. the subjugation of the/c to the Nitrogen is also the power of repulsion, carbon the power of attraction (4555); thus where nitrogen predominates one has a gas—as in respiration, an animal product—and where carbon predominates, a solid—as in the carbonate residue left by corals, on the animal-vegetable border. the/as silicium: Silicum is classed by Steffens in Beyträge 38–78 with carbon as an exponent of vegetation, hence as Epidermis of Silex. See 4663n. Diamond of animal origin?: The transition to Diamond (an easy one to Coleridge—see CN I 1098 f28v and in this volume 4751) parallels Steffens Beyträge 55– 7, though Steffens seems to make it vegetable. His aim in this section is to show that there are two principal types of geological structure, calcareous and siliceous, correlated with animal and vegetable residues geogonically explicable, also correlated; also nitrogen
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and carbon as representatives of magnetism. Correlations are suggested also with metallic series. Iron is part of the more coherent series in which diamond occurs but its position in the series is sufficiently far away from silex that it might be animal rather than vegetable, as Coleridge seems to think. hydrogenated Carbon: Diamond, as in Steffens ibid 57. betwixt Iron and Silex: As above in Steffens, also 183–5. Steffens’s correlations are also with fluidity and solidity, establishing his series, though Coleridge’s antechrystalline Fluidity appears to be his own idea. eisenhaltigen Sand: “ferruginous” sand. The diamond sparkles: See 4929 f31v and n. maturation of Granite into Coal: Granite for Steffens is the first Bildung (141), “formation”, which under the vegetative tendency of nature produces coal (58), granite being according to Werner the first member of the schistous formation which exemplifies vegetative tendencies (18–19). Still, however, my thoughts fly back: I.e. to CN III 4226? And to Schelling Zeitschrift für spekulativ Physik I (1800) 102 foll, and to many of the sources and thoughts behind TL? f55 Thus the Metals always found with Platinum: As Oken says, Naturgeschichte I 462, naming ten of them or more. projecting Opposites as Contraries: I.e. flint is siliceous and vegetable, lime calcareous and animal, and thus opposed. But also flint in thin strata, is breadth, electricity; lime in vast masses is depth, galvanism. Thus powers, strata, chemistry, and life are all correlated. 4815 29.79 The full stop is somewhat muddled in the MS. Jacobi in Allwills Briefsammlung quoted this passage as Coleridge has it, omitting the same few words from Plato and all accents and breathings, with the name of Diotima (Socrates’ mistress), who is quoted as speaking these words, but with no reference to Plato or Symposium 203 A; see Jacobi Werke (6 vols 1812–22) I 226. Coleridge’s annotated copy of the first three volumes, 1812, 1815, 1816, is in the library of Columbia University. See CM II under Jacobi. See also below 4816–4819, 4923, 5204 and nn. Jacobi used the passage as a postscript to a love-letter in which a character in his novel declares he is dying of Love: Tr: God does not mingle with man, but only through the spirit do Gods have any communion or converse with Men. If Coleridge was using this notebook when writing C&S, his use of Diotima for his reference instead of Plato may have obscured even from himself the fact, when he quoted some of these words, that he was quoting from Jacobi, not directly from the Symposium. See C&S (CC) 184 and n 3, also 166. On the use of Jacobi at this time, see also 4816, 4817 and nn. 4816 29.80 In AP 300, without the German conclusion. If like 4815 it is from Jacobi, it has not been found; see 4815, 4817 and nn. The German, which may be Coleridge’s own reads: “You would [be able] to explain this otherwise to me without difficulty”, and even [bring] my own facts on your side by
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Words: “for the deeper truth always has the web of words against it: the instinct of the letter is to subdue reason, to deal with it as Jupiter did with his father”. 4817 29.81 The words have not been found in Hobbes’s Latin works but are in Jacobi Werke 1 306 (see 4815 above), who used them as a motto for a story, “Die feinste aller Haderkünste” (“The most subtle of all polemical tricks”) without locating the reference specifically. Tr: If Euclid’s proposition that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles had been contrary to the interests of those in power, I have no doubt that it would have been either disputed or suppressed. 4818 29.82 The entry is mainly adaptation of Jacobi’s pp 284–5 in the first volume of his works cited above in 4815n. The Latin and Greek phrases are all Coleridge’s, and he substituted the name of Allsop—if the obliterated word is correctly so read—for Jacobi’s Ernestine. The conclusion is entirely his own. The name Alsop was all but deleted, with acid. If by Alsop himself, this might be a clue to reasons for similar deletions. Possibly Mrs Gillman was not responsible for all such interference with the MSS; see 4986 and the references to CN III in the n. de rebus…ratio: “As to things not apparent, and those non-existent, the rule is the same”. A legal maxim, about documents not produced in court, etc; see SM:LS (CC) 18n2, 99. ens apparens…patiens: “an entity apparent through a form which exists from itself and through another thing, or an entity having and passively accepting a form proper to itself’. rei apparentia: “the appearance of a thing”. et per quam…solvitur: “and through which it posits and projects itself: and, when the shape is removed, it is dissolved”. id, quo figitur: “that by which it is fixed”. genus linguæ…(sufficiens): “genus of the generative language which is under all and each one, the common underlying (sufficient) cause of languages”. Cf 4770 and n. Γλωσσαι αγλωσσοι: “tongueless Tongues”; cf λóγος in SM:LS (CC) 99, also χρονος αχρονος in 4794 f36 above. 4819 29.83 The source has not been traced. 4820 29.84 ΣFHδενβουργ: Swedenborg. (p. 216. De cælo et inferno): See CN I 165n and CN III 3474 and n. The passage in Coleridge’s edition (1785) is on 216–7, § 492: For man is accustomed from childhood to make a show of friendship, benevolence, and sincerity, and to conceal the thoughts springing from his own will. He has consequently acquired the habit of living a moral and civil life outwardly, whatever he may be inwardly, and the effect of this habit is that man scarcely knows or thinks anything about his inner mind. Tr F.Bayley Heaven and its Wonders, and Hell (1909) ed J.Howard Spalding. 4821 20.21 Lord Grenville pro Papistis Britanno Hiberniis: Lord Grenville “for the British-Irish Papists”.
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Tuesday Night, April 17, 1821: The Lords debated the “Roman Catholic Disability Bill”, which had passed its three readings in the Commons earlier in the month; if the date refers to the entry, Coleridge was recording a debate he attended. Reports appeared in the daily papers for 18 April. Grenville’s speech was very long, though Coleridge’s description of his cogent liberal argument in support of the bill shows Protestant bias and was undoubtedly coloured by dislike of the man, formerly a friend of Pitt, more recently an advocate of the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. the true Question Coleridge thought, involved both church and state. See below f9v. adhuc sub lite: “still in dispute”. Swift’s Humane Project: Swift’s A Modest Proposal for preventing the children of poor people from becoming a burthen to their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the publick (Dublin 1729). Grenville referred to Swift generally and quoted his views on Ireland several times in his speech. Grenville adverted at length on the history of English confiscations of Catholic properties in Ireland, and the refusal of political equality, but while he used the word monstrous at least twice, and the implications of Tyranny and Iniquity are present, Coleridge was not quoting directly. f9 in the H[ouse] of Commons…Mr Canning’s speeches: Canning in the Commons debate (16, 26 Mar 1821) had made bland but eloquent speeches in favour of the bill, complimenting the proposers and opponents alike on the “candour”, “temper”, and “propriety” of the debate. Hansard for 16, 26 March 1821 (N.S. Vol IV col 1302). He also referred sarcastically to those who, in opposition to the bill, had suggested that Popery was still Popery, i.e. “the apprehension that the present race of Catholics would throw off a mask worn by successive generations of their ancestors….” The Speeches of George Canning (6 vols 1828) IV 270–309. (Canning’s speeches are not always fully reported in Hansard.) Sir T, Lethbridge & Mr Ellis: Thomas Buckler Lethbridge (1778– 1849) was M.P. for Somerset 1806–12, 1820–30. Thomas Ellis, Master in Chancery, Dublin, was elected M.P. for Dublin (over Henry Grattan) in 1820. Neither appears to have made any important (let alone riot-inducing) speech in the House, though both spoke against the bill. Lord Liverpool’s Reply: Hansard reported the Earl of Liverpool as referring in the Lords debate to the danger to England if Roman Catholics obtained political power, because of “what might be called, for brevity’s sake, foreign allegiance”. Hansard for 17 April 1821 (N.S. Vol V col 341). f9v The three letters to C.A.Tulk on the so-called Catholic Question are not in CL and may not have survived; so-called, because Coleridge preferred to distinguish between Catholic (in the original sense of “Universal”) and Roman Catholic. Cf C & S (CC) 120, 140–1. See below 4875 and n. The letters were addressed to C.A.Tulk because he had recently been elected M.P. See also EOT (CC) Index under Catholic Emancipation. 4822 20.22 Sophism a gradibus continuis: “The Sophism of infinite series” or sorites, more usually the sophism of the heap of grain, or sand, leading by a chain of statements from fact to absurdity. Sit pro causâ…facta fuerat: “Let that without which a thing would not have happened and have been done be taken as its cause”. Sophisma malitiosum: “the malicious Sophism”.
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4823 20.23 Prometheus’. 16 May 1821 Coleridge wrote to Derwent: H[artley] has the noblest Subject that perhaps a Poet ever worked on—the Prometheus—& I have written a small volume almost to him, containing all the materials & comments on the full import of this most pregnant and sublime Mythos and Philosopheme—in short, the sum of all my Reading and reflection on this vast Wheel of the earliest & purest Heathenism…. CL V 142–3. Hartley, “in or about 1820" Derwent said, in prefatory remarks to Hartley’s poetic fragment Prometheus, showed the beginning of this work to his father, “who was much pleased with the commencement, and took great interest in the work. This may, however, have operated as a virtual discouragement….” Poems by Hartley Coleridge (2 vols 1851) I 280. the good side of his Gift: The divine spark, the nous? In his Royal Society lecture On the Prometheus of Aeschylus (to edit the text given in LR 335–6) Coleridge called the Prometheus “the sublime mythus… concerning the genesis, or birth of the or reason in man…The Prometheus is a philosophema ταυτηγορικòν: the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil, [is] an allegory, a [a sacerdotal lesson], though the noblest and most pregnant of its kind”. See 4832, 4843 and nn. the Northern Nightingale whose simply plaintive tones: Cf Coleridge’s poem, The Nightingale, in which Milton’s “‘Most musical, most melancholy’ Bird” is quoted in order to refute this last phrase. PW I 264. The source of Coleridge’s information has not been traced. The Thrush Nightingale was described and named Luscinia luscinia by Linnaeus in 1758. That there was another similar but separate species which overlapped in range, Luscinia megarhynchos, was not established until 1831; this is known as the Nightingale to English ornithologists. The Swedes and Dutch refer to Southern and Northern Nightingales. Neither of these, nor Coleridge’s Wood-lark, has been recorded in Iceland. Coleridge appears to have been aware that Iceland, well-covered by birch woods until c the tenth century, was once a better habitat for these birds. His alternatives of Shore- Sand- or Reed-Larks (Sedgepipers) whether larks, warblers, or waders, cannot be identified with any confidence. 4824 20.24 from the first leaf: a postscript after nearly 13 years to CN III 3314? Meditations on Broomsticks: Swift’s title had come to mind as a natural consequence of Grenville’s speech referred to in 4821? the Caterpillar: Noticed in CN III 3362 and n, 4088, 4377, 4378 f30v and n, a favourite subject; and in this volume see above 4794 f36 and below 4832 f61v nn. ab oυo ad imaginem: “from the egg to the perfect insect”. Inter alia quam plurima: “Among very many others”. the Psyche: See Psyche: PW I 412, and in this volume 4832f62. Metanoia: “repentance/change of heart or mind”; see 5270f6 below. the Old Man: Cf Eph 4:22; Col 3:9. The third paragraph may possibly be another entry, though from its MS appearance one feels it was written at the same time. In the loose associative process going on here, again the link seems to be the larva and the instinctive in nature.
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4825 29.183 The entry begins on a blank page opposite the end of the notes for the second lecture of the early 1818 course; see CN III 4384 f149v and n. Absorbents’. A term used at that time for a wide range of the only recently comprehended organs of absorption in animals and plants, like e.g. lacteal glands or fibrous roots. In 1810 Coleridge had read one of the early articles on absorption; see CN III 3855. Abernethy in the fifth of his Physiological Lectures (1817) 196–242 gave John Hunter’s views on the subject. The term was also discussed in John Elliotson’s translation of Blumenbach Institutions of Physiology (1817) 231–9 (§ XXIX), see 4646 f5n. Bichat’s Organic…System: See above 4617, 4829 and nn. Thomas Rennell, in his Remarks on Scepticism (1819) 55–6 quoting Bichat, says, in trying to demolish him as a materialist: Following the sensations of the external body to the brain, without any sort of ceremony he constitutes that the organ of perception; he speaks of its “education” and considers the memory and the imagination as dependent upon its action. . . . Hence the physical temperament, and the moral character cannot be changed by education. It is clear why Coleridge and Gillman were interested in attacking Bichat’s physiology, and were describing the lowest manifestations of life in vitalistic, dynamic terms. Contractility…Appetence…: Cf 4541 and 4854. Carbon: The first manifestation of colour is in the fluid contained in the veins and arteries, (i.e. blood); carbon dioxide is produced from the carbon in the blood by breathing. Carbon is the exponent of contraction, fixity, (containment?) and representative of vegetable life. f149v Facts…blac…into scarlet Blo…2. the Bl 3. Nitrous Oxyd: Venous blood is darker because of its high carbon content; this is diminished in the lungs in respiration, when carbon dioxide is breathed out. Hence arterial blood is scarlet. When excitability is being decreased by bleeding, the metabolic efficiency of the circulation of the blood is being reduced, hence the change in carbon content and paler colour. The Blush signals a reverse process; increased excitability heightens the colour. So nitrous oxide also. This last point may be a memory of watching Humphry Davy administer nitrous oxide in the Pneumatic Institution in Bristol. It is not clear on what level of inquiry Coleridge was discussing excitability and the production of carbon in the blood, (cf 5425 below) but his physiological illustrations at the end point to his—and Gillman’s—medical interest in stimulation, paleness, and the therapeutic use of nitrous oxide, which last for Coleridge went back to Bristol days with Beddoes and Davy. 4826 30.59 This entry is on the paste-down inside the back cover; Coleridge changed pens at in Engl[and], the first one having become very coarse. Is there evil in the City…: Amos 3:6. The utter non-performance of…Duties of Government & Church: The crises and corruptions of c 1819–20 no doubt helped to induce Coleridge later to produce (in 1829) The Constitution of Church and State, according to the Idea of Each: views of this period were probably sharpened by parallels in Burnet; see 5082–5085 and nn, 4827. The late Queen’s Persecution: See 4803, 4827 and nn.
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4827 M.28 The reference to the trial of Queen Caroline and a letter to Thomas Allsop [11 Oct 1820] give an approximate date for this entry; see CL V 115–7. The “trial” went on from July 1820 when Liverpool brought in the Bill of Pains and Penalties until early November when the third reading got a negligible majority and the bill was dropped. f37v Calumniation & Mock-Trial of the Queen….: Queen Caroline was tried before the House of Lords on charges of adultery brought by her husband, George IV. Liverpool introduced a bill 5 July 1820 to remove her title and dissolve the royal marriage. The House of Commons condemning yet acquiescing: Possibly Coleridge referred to efforts Wilberforce had made in June 1820 to persuade the Queen to give up insisting on having her name in the Prayer Book in return for an assurance that the House of Commons would “protect her honour”. She refused. f38 brutal Advocacy of Perjury…of our Attorney General: The Attorney-General was Robert Gifford, (see 4986 and n) who opened the case for the prosecution 19–21 Aug 1820 in a long speech telling the Queen’s unsavoury life story since 1814. The prosecution lasted into Sept. On 3 Oct Brougham opened her defence in a very long speech; the case went on until 10 Nov. The British Press was mainly on the side of the Queen, including The Times, less from illusions about her innocence than from hatred of the King and his numerous powerful supporters, like e.g. Eldon. To which specific Advocacy of perjury Coleridge referred is not clear, because in the hectic times of charges and counter-charges, secret and not so secret, these accusations were plentiful. Possibly by our Attorney General Coleridge was referring rather to Brougham, the Queen’s Attorney-General, who had played an ambiguous part in the whole affair. Coleridge may have known that he relayed to Caroline an offer from the King of an increase in pension if she would withdraw her various demands for royal status, and then advised her against accepting it. She perjured herself by declaring her innocence. The portrait of her as Injured Innocence, however, must be attributed to the inflamed sentiments of the period, stirred by the obvious unfairness of the unequal battle, and by her death in London a month after she had been denied access to the coronation at the door of Westminster Abbey in July 1821; see 4826 and n. a Loathsome Tyrant: Coleridge’s most searing attack on George IV. Tiberius, Roman emperor from 14 to 37 A.D. sank from an efficient monarch to torture, indulgence of himself, and madness. Heliogabalus: Roman Emperor from 218 to 222 A.D. called Heliogabalus or Elagabalus because of his cruel and fanatic attempts to bring sun worship into Rome as the state religion; he was considered mad and was murdered by his own praetorian guard. Coleridge’s choice of tyrannical examples was not fortuitous. Pelagianism: A fifth-century heresy named after Bishop Pelagius of England. See 4750 f50v. One characteristic of Pelagianism was a “commercializing” of Christianity, by denying the doctrine of Original Sin and by maintaining that justifying grace would be given only to those who had earned it; see e.g. 5244 and n. 4828 M.29 Written out of concern about Derwent’s career? See below 4937 and n. higher κυδος…Comparative Advantage from Classical Lectures… Compar. Chance of Scholarships…Fellowships: Was this Oxford vs Cambridge or vice versa? 4829 29.85 f56 βηµενς: He preferred Behmen’s trichotomy to the+(axes of the Compass of Nature) of the German Naturphilosophen for whom he coined the term
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physiosophers, in a parlance carrying (from Coleridge) disrespectful overtones denying them the title of philosophers. See also 4784, 5086, 5143 and nn on the significance of trichotomies. The Pentad would comprehend both: Thomas Stanley said in his History of Philosophy Chap IX (1701) 3822: “The Pentad is the first complexion of both kinds of number, even and odd, two and three.” But see Coleridge on the pentad in 5086, 5298, 5446. On another pentad, of five “powers” with two poles each, Coleridge’s Decad, see CN III 4420. See also a note on Böhme Three Principles: CM I Böhme Works I ii 26. Bichat: On Coleridge’s disagreement with Bichat’s division of animal and vegetable life, see 4617 and n, and 4825. Heart…in Man…bilocular…lower animals have two unilocular Hearts: On the anatomy of the “heart” in insects, see 5171, and an attempt at physiological analysis in 5425. Apes—quadrumanous: See 4984 and n. 5 fingers of Nature—δεχεται, digiti, decas: Coleridge derived deka “ten” and decas, “group of ten, decad” from δέχοµαι, “I take”, in CN III 4436 without referring to the pentad. The Dyad is the essential form of Unity: Cf 4513 ff5–5v, all manifestation is by Opposites, each opposed to the other as Thesis and Antithesis…Thus then: Unity is manifested by Opposites: see also CN III 4418 f14v and n. ipso termino: “as the term itself implies” Alter et Idem: “Other and the Same”; cf 5256 and n. Copying…Imitation: See CN II 2211 and n, 2274; III 4397 f50 and n. 4830 29.86 AP 300–1. See an early entry on this theme. CN I 1725. How many hostile Tenets…Fragments of Truth—false only by negation, and mutual exclusion: A good statement of Coleridge’s considered syncretism; see e.g. CN III 3847. 4831 29.87 Coleridge’s principal statements in print on symbolism were made in SM and BL, but early and late he continued the struggle to grasp and clarify the poetical, philosophical, and theological importance of symbols. This entry, the following one, and 4839 enrich the earlier efforts to make distinctions. See in addition to indexes to SM:LS (CC) and BL (CC), CN I 1387; II 2546, 2548; III 3325, 3954, 4058, 4253, 4503 and nn; in this volume, e.g., 4711. His refinements go well beyond Creuzer, e.g. in the distinction between symbol and allegory, and in developing the subject of the theological significance of symbolism; in a sense these are all part of Coleridge’s awareness of the complexity of consciousness. Here Coleridge was reading G.F.Creuzer Symbolik und Mythologie der alten Völker, using the first edition (4 vols Leipzig 1810–12), as the line reference (486 rather than 487) to the Prometheus of Aeschylus (f57v) indicates and also his reference to Creuzer in Lect 2 P Lects (CC) ff8–9 (28 Dec 1818). Later he also used the second edition (6 vols Leipzig and Darmstadt 1819–23); see 4839, 4856 and nn. In fact the presence of Creuzer behind Lects 2 and 3 is greater than was realized in 1949 when Phil Lects was first published, and some of Coleridge’s notes in N 25 made in preparation for the lectures are close to this entry. This will be evident in the revised edition of P Lects now under way, but because the symbolical, the mythical, and the allegorical are subjects of such wide-ranging importance to Coleridge, as discussed in
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this entry and elsewhere (see also e.g. 4625, 4831, 4832 and nn), it seems necessary in the interim to quote now from N 25 f29v–30: Creuzer’s apology for, rather eulogy on, the Image worship § 3 vol I=the popish argument of Poor Men’s Books, utterly and perniciously false, false in psychology, falsified by experience…. What instance is there of any nation passing to a purer form thro’ Idolatry? What instance in which the idolatrous Nation did not become more and more besotted?— Creuzer’s own argument § 4, p. 6. is almost a contradiction to it—viz. the imperative Brevity of the oldest sacerdotal Ethic, or Gnomonic. Compare the passage from Heraclitus of the Sibyllæ—and already I perceive that Creuzer confounds the symbolic τò συµβολικòν with so far from being the same they are not even cognate or congener, but opposites or rather contraries. Strange! that a man like Creuzer should not have seen that such a Habit of Soul† as is exprest in the Faith—there is nothing which is not an exponent of Deity every even the mean[est] is a part of the great Language of the supreme Idea” is incompatible with proper Idolatry, and the popular mythology as found in Homer!— The proper form of religious Instruction δειξις θεων, not αποδειξις monstn not demonst.—Creuzer does not understand symbolic or mythic, which Proclus properly connects with a και the µυθος being only a συστηµα of symbols but still worse he translates the Pythagoraic εικονες (analogies) as if Proclus had written ειδωλα by Bilder. †That works in all to act, in man alone to know. Every word at once a prayer, for it is a name—and so too that at first is strictly a calling on, before it becomes a calling by—it is a language, in which man talks with Nature, and then talks of. Vocans invocat. Nomen numen, νοοµενον νουµενον. In order that readers who may not have access to this relatively scarce and complex work may see the manner in which Coleridge made use of it, it has seemed necessary to quote (in translation) at unusual length. f57 ∆ι’ ενδειξεως=intuitive: Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12)123–4 translated from Proclus In theologiam Platonis Bk I Ch IV, giving the Greek in a fn. Tr: Those who speak of divine things indirectly through signs (i.e. intuitively) speak either symbolically and mythically, or through images. Of those who express thoughts directly, on the other hand, some express them in scientific terms, others through divine inspiration. A presentation which attempts to utter the divine through symbols is Orphic and is entirely peculiar to the authors of the myths of the gods. The presentation through images is Pythagorean.
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Although Creuzer, as will become apparent, was the main resource behind this entry, Coleridge may well have turned at this point to the copy of Proclus Green had given him (4744, 4746). αποδειξις=demonstration: Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) I 24N. by απóδειξις, one must Tr: Moreover, when Hesychius explains not be misled, for απóδειξις belongs on the contrary to the other sphere of presentation, the philosophical, and the term θεολογία indicates demonstrative theology. Eνδειξις διεξοδος: “intuition as distinguished from discursive”; cf in Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) I 25 (tr) “In this [Plotinus Enneads V 8.6] description of the Egyptian way of teaching, the discursive (διεξοδ-εύειν) is very sharply distinguished from the totally ).” suggestive (τò The endictic or intuitive…is a Mythe or Mυθος: Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) I 28 which Tr: That general division of intuitive teaching, or the uses συνθήµατα, visible signs or ostensible designations, for its expression falls really, according to Proclus, into two subdivisions: the symbolical and mythical and the pictorial The fact that at least in this passage the writer named does not oppose the symbolical to the mythical is proved partly by the use of the conjunction and and partly from the fact that he attributes the symbolical expression to the Orphics and to all those who have composed theomyths…The Orphic theogony and cosmogony are obviously to be understood as included in this latter, set forth as they are poetically in symbolic myths. τοĩς ποιήµασι…τάξεις τε καì σειράς: “in his poems he (Orpheus) tells, by means of mythical symbols, the orders and series of the gods”; from Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) I 28 n quoting Eudocia Violarium. The Mathematic or Pythagorean is iconic…as the Sibyls: Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) I 28–9, continuing from “symbolic myths” above. Tr: Thus, just as, according to this, the Orphic is mythic-symbolic, so also the presentation through pictures is called Pythagorean. The significance of this last sentence appears immediately from the following one: viz., in it the mathematical figures are to be understood by means of which Pythagoras constructed ideas in space. He used these figures (σχήµατα) and numbers as the passage continues, to represent the gods; they necessariiy served him as pictures to set forth the divine… The Greek phrases applied to the Discursive of Aristotle (i.e. “in a scientific way”) and to the Sibyls (“by inspiration”) come from Proclus, quoted by Creuzer (see above, in this
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note). On Aristotle in this context see 5132 and n, and on Sibyls see SM:LS (CC) 26, and n. Συµβάλλειν, σνµβαλλεσθαι, to cast together…and the seal-ring: Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) I 33–6. Tr: Three principal meanings of the verb σνµβάλλειν, σνµβάλλεσθαι are alike the roots of a whole wealth of ideas which the Greeks bound up with their σύµβολον. First, συµβάλλειν meant “to unite, to put together, to bring together the separated”. Then συµβάλλεσθαι and συµβάλλειν, with the dative of the person, meant “to meet together with someone, to negotiate something with him, to make an alliance”… Finally its meaning was “to compare one’s opinion with a present instance”, “to suppose”, “to conjecture”, “to conclude”, especially “To try to decipher something puzzling”; and thus especially used of the interpretation of divine utterances and prophecies. The simplest concept of σύµβολον, arising immediately from the first meaning of the verb given above, is used by Plato [Footnote: Symposium XVI: at the beginning, and so too Aristotle in De generatione animalium I 18] to mean “one put together from two”, and on this simplest usage in speech rests the oldest use of the actual symbolic token of assurance. To break a tablet in two and preserve the halves as pledges, as signs of an agreed right to hospitality was an ancient custom hallowed in Greece as elsewhere. This fragment of the broken tablet (tessera) was now itself called a symbol (σύµβολον) or tessera hospitalis. The word was not limited to that kind of contract alone, however, but included all agreements which were validated with a visible symbol…. The concept of symbol (σύµβολον) included in it the law of alliance between states; the act of alliance, especially a commercial agreement between states; a legal contract involved in such official trade alliances, then every pledge at every kind of purchase or contract; the ring given as a pledge in place of the actual contribution to the organiser of a common meal; a pledge at banking transactions; the tablet with the password in military operations (tessera militaris), the password itself as well as each sign agreed on in a war (usually called συνθήµατα and παρασυνθήµατα); every ticket of admission, theatre ticket, and the like, including the token given at a betrothal or marriage union, especially the wedding ring; and because the picture engraved on the signet ring was the mark of identity and assurance of the person wearing it, there arose the general meaning “signet ring” and “ring” in general. Lastly, by progressive Generalization…deciphering: Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) I 36–8, continuing from above: Tr: Since σύµβολον means a sign of all these relationships and alliances, it is very natural that it should fall together with the general notion of sign itself (σηµεīον). Therefore also the sign in contrast to the essence, the
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mere indication, in contrast to the very truth indicated, is called a σύµβολον; as from the basic concept indicated above various distinct meanings radiate. Primarily the word, used as a sign of a thing, is called a σύµβολον, as also is the emblem, as an outward sign of an action or a conviction. All of the meanings hitherto noted derive without difficulty from the first use of συµβύλλειν, “to bring together something divided”, and from the associated simplest idea of σύµβολον as “something brought together”. This simplest idea of the word also retains its validity in the meanings which followed. Nevertheless, for the higher sense of σύµβολον it must at the same time be remembered that there are two other meanings of the verb; first, “to meet together”, “to meet with”, especially “to meet with unexpectedly”; second, “to decipher from dark hints”. In the manly faith of the ancients…same Powers in their lower Forms: Cf above 4770 and Lect XI of Mar 1818: LR I 186. Hinting…µαντεια…κληδωυ: Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) I 38. Tr: With this observation there presents itself the sphere of religious interpretation and signification according to the ideas of the Greeks. This signification (µαντεία) [oracular pronouncement, divination] relates to the senses of hearing and sight. To divine utterances addressed to the ear, according to Greek folk beliefs, belong the χρησµóς, or pronouncement by an oracle, the [“speech”, or especially divine speech] and [“omen” in the form of significant words or sounds]… his Fame, as distinguished from his reputation: Cf CN II 3197, III 3291, 3671, and in this volume 5354 and nn. Quod putavit ille, nos iterum putamus: “What he has thought we think again”; not from Creuzer. f57v χρησµος=Oracle…a Masculine in Plautus: Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) I 38–40, continuing from above. Tr:…or significant sounds, especially the cries of birds, omina ex voce [“vocal omens”].54 The hintings for the eye have the following special designations: a view or an appearance; so again, from the dual meaning of the word, is likewise an appearance (visio); τέρας, a phenomenon departing from the usual course of things and from the laws of nature (monstrum); and finally σύµβολον, primarily, as noted, every sign from which one comes to a conclusion, but also a sign that strikes the eye, especially with the accessory notion of the accidental, the unexpected, and especially the accidental ominous meeting of a person. Signs in the upper air are also called σύµβολα—e.g. lightning and similar µετέωρα [Coleridge’s meteors] especially the significant flights of birds, and all auguries drawn from the appearance and meeting of birds held to be sacred.57
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54
The Athenians combined these kinds under the one word and the poets under 57 Hence too Aeschylus in Prometheus 486 connects the ominous meeting on the road [“meetings/symbols on the road”] with the flight of birds…. On these grounds such a bird is itself called σύµβολος [“symbolic bird”]—Aristophanes Birds 720…. Plautus uses Symbolus as a masculine to indicate the symbolic generally…. There is some truth…: Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) I 40–3. Tr: Within this new series of ideas quite unmistakably there stand out several basic concepts…. First there is the idea of the natural, the original, but also of the accidental, the obscure in origin, and therefore also, according to ancient belief, the divine. Thus when a Greek lexicographer58 says that picture and likeness are the names given to whatever is what it is by nature and to everyone, such as the picture of a lion etc., while on the other hand σύµβολον and σηµεĩoν, symbol and sign, are the names given to whatever is what it is by convention (θέσει) for example the sign for war or peace, which is one thing with the Romans and the Persians, although other nations have chosen something else, etc.—this lexicographer has indeed said something true about the opposition which exists between the representational [“kyriologisch”—Coleridge’s κυριοóγικον] picture and the emblematic. But how paltry is the level on which he views the symbolical, or rather how little he has touched the real nature of the symbolic in this reference to the mere emblem. But…the usage of the classical authors of Greece, of Aeschylus, Aristophanes, Xenophon and others, places the symbol in the realm of religion, and shows clearly that it indicated relations between gods and men, relations which were not susceptible to definitions but which did have meanings. Whatever spoke to mankind unexpectedly from the hidden depths of nature as a visible presage or warning and took on an uncommon appearance was aσύµβολον….The basic powers, personified in gods, held sway over these signs, and as the originators of divination were themselves its first expounders. The connexion of such signs with the thing signified is thus primary and divine, and just as the entire religious ceremony is a transmission of that help which the gods themselves first gave to men, so all the symbolism by which the priests mirror the higher knowledge rests not on arbitrary, humanly contrived, depictions but from the beginning on these very age-old connexions…. So says Iamblichus [Creuzer fn 59 quotes the Greek of De mysteriis I 11 as Coleridge has it and in the text translates into German]: “Some depictions in religious rites have been consecrated from eternity as symbols to the higher powers”, with reference to the symbolic language of nature itself, and he distinguishes them from the
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image and the likening of the human to the divine as well as the striving [of the former] to unite with the latter Thus as a result there appears a relationship between image and symbol quite the contrary to that depicted above, where the representational [kyriologische] picture appeared of necessity bound to its subject and the emblem only fortuitously. 58 Fragmentum Lexici graeci Augustan. ad calc. Hermanni de emendand. rat. Gramm. gr. p. 319. [Coleridge owned and annotated this book (Leipzig 1801); see CN III 3279n.] the Cabbalists: Not mentioned here by Creuzer; see 4625 and n. St Paul (Coloss.)…Eικων: Col 1:15 and 3:10; the word is rendered “image” in both texts (AV). Cf e.g. CM I Bible B on Col 1:15 and n. f58 The simplest use of Symbolic…: Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) I 43–4, continuing from the last extract. Tr: Also in the teachings of the Stoics concerning symbolic answers there is the clarification of a fundamental meaning of this word. The lexicographer Ammonius in the attempt to distinguish between a question (ερώτησις) and an enquiry states that according to philosophical opinion the question is an utterance which demands a symbolic answer, as “Yes”, “No”, “Certainly”, “Doubtfully”. For example, the sentence “Is it day?” is a question which is answered symbolically. Conversely, the is an enquiry which cannot be satisfied by a symbolic answer, as, for example, the question “Where does Ariston live?” A specific assertion of his place of residence must follow…. A symbolic answer was an answer by means of a wave of the hand or a gesture, a brief physical signal; and since “Yes” and “no” and the like are nothing more than a vocalized wave or gesture, they were called symbolic answers…. Whoever is the recipient of such a wave sees the entirety at one glance. Is that a Line of Virgil’s?: See Logic (CC) 107–8; Coleridge is quoting M.Mendelssohn Morgenstunden and indirectly J.Harris. a Magnet…Sealing Wax…Pewter Pot: Coleridge introduces his own examples; this sentence and the preceding one have no basis in Creuzer. Insight…from Symbols…προσβολη…θεα, θεασθαι: θεασθαι: Creuzer Symbolik (1810– 12) 1 44n (tr) “His [Ammonius’s] recognition is thus a προσβολή [Coleridge’s ‘glance’] or θέα just as means to see at once and as a whole…” On προσβολη see also below, 4832 f60v and n. First in Paganism…συµβολα: Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) I 45–6. Tr: Every sign and word, which verifies the truth of a statement or doctrine and immediately gives conviction, is thus also called a σύµβολον…. That remarkable word of living memory which Periander
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received through Melissa’s death oracle [Coleridge’s Nεκρoµαντεια] and which at once gave him faith in the truth of the pronouncement was called just that.62… First of all, regarding paganism: no detailed proof is required to show that the higher symbols selected for its mystic rites were called σύµβολα. This name, for example, was given to the hide of the fawn with which the initiated covered themselves, the cicadas which they wore in their hair, the purple carpet on which they walked, and all the similar visual signs through which they tried to hint at hidden truths. 62 Really σνµβóλαιον. The passage is in Herodotus V 92 7; and Sophocles, who in expression as well as in mode of thought is closely related to this historian, uses the same word regarding a sign (Philoct. 904); he uses σύµβολον in the same sense in the same tragedy (407). dietetic laws of Moses: Lev 11; cf 5116 and n. ιερα γραµµατα: “sacred letters”; see 4794 f34v and 4832. Birds, Beasts &c of Egypt: See 4794 and n. Lastly and as culminant…: Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) I 47–51 discusses the symbols of the Christian church in the same sense in which he has discussed symbols in paganism, as visible signs and acts indicating inward beliefs often with the addition of glorifying epithets, “awful symbols” (σεβάσµια σύµβολα) as Baptism and Holy Communion. He points out also that these symbola were marks and secrets setting off believers from non-believers, initiated from uninitiated. At this point Coleridge interrupts his dialogue with Creuzer to discuss the Eucharist. f58v “the etymon”, the etymological source, originally “true/ genuine”. full confutation both of the Romanists…Papal Faction in the Western or Latin Church: With this discussion of the Eucharist cf 5161, 5215, and nn; also CN III 3847n. persecution of Berengarius: Tennemann VIII 99–100, citing Lessing, describes the threats and outcries raised against Berengarius of Tours in the 11th century for his statement that the bread and wine of the sacrament did not undergo physical change. Scholasticis pæne…rectius Assentantibus: “almost all the Schoolmen assenting unwillingly and, as it were, dissentiently, or rather acquiescing”. Signum merè significans: “Sign merely signifying”. Berengartus asserts and vindicates the real Presence: Tennemann VIII–I 99–100. same words as our Church Catechism: The Catechism of the Church of England says that “the outward part or sign of the Lord’s Supper” is “Bread and Wine” and that the “inner part or thing signified” is “the Body and Blood of CHRIST, which are verily and indeed taken up and received by the faithful in the Lord’s Supper.” so the Fathers…expressed themselve…: See below 5161 and n. σεβασµια ΣYMBOΛA “sacred SYMBOLS”; from Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) I 47n; see f58 above. thus Maximus…Areop. Cap. I. 58: Creuzer’s Symbolik (1810–12) I 470 quotes St Maximus the Confessor (c 580–662) Scholia on Dionysius the Areopagite De ecclesiastica hierarchia I 58: “the rites of the Mysteries are observed in symbols and types”.
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other interpretations…Legend of the Creed=Symbolum or Symbola Fidei…Pic Nic contributions of the 12 Apostles: Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) (I 49–51) cites “a Greek explanation of the Symbolum fidei that has only recently become known”, which says that it was called symbolon because it was an outward sign of an invisible faith already existing in the soul. Some held that the Symbolon Apostolicum, the Apostles’ Creed, was so called because each of the twelve apostles made his contribution (symbole) to it as though to a common meal. (See CM I Baxter Reliquiae Copy B 100.) Creuzer pointed out that behind the great variety of meanings attached to the word by modern writers runs the idea, derived from pagan sources, of a privileged meaning and its direct connexion with a higher truth so revealed. 4832 29.88 There is a small gap and a break indicated in the manuscript and the hand has a slightly different slope from 4831. This entry also reflects the reading of Creuzer, but to a lesser extent, beginning with the chapter following the one used in 4831. The indubitable use of Creuzer here begins at f59v, at µυω=claudo. The earlier part with the further discussion of fable (f6o) is mainly Coleridge’s own compilation, drawing on, perhaps among others, Rees, Webster and Lessing cited below. f59 Simile. He is like a Lion…rushes to the Prey: Cf Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) I 65 (tr): If the poet says, “Achilles storms thence as a lion”, that critic [Aristotle Rhetoric III 4] remarks, he speaks in simile; on the other hand, the expression “the lion storms thence”, referring to Achilles, would be a metaphor. A connected Series of Metaphors…Allegory. Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12)I 83 (tr): With a symbol an idea comes through complete in an instant and seizes all the powers of our minds…. Allegory entices us to look upward and travel along the path which the images of hidden ideas are taking. In the one is instantaneous totality, in the other a progress in a series of such moments. Cf Abraham Rees in The Cyclopaedia (see 4657n) I under “Allegory”: When several metaphors succeed each other, says Cicero (Orator c. 27 tom. i; p. 520) they alter the form of the composition, and this succession has very properly, in reference to the etymology of the word, been denominated by the Greeks αλληγορια, an allegory. this Allegory, so qualified, is A Fable: This distinction is not Creuzer’s nor is it John Webster’s in his Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft (1677) 141, 144–7. As Coleridge says, it probably is his own. συµβολα, or ως σνµβoλα: “symbols, or as symbols” quoting Iamblichus; see above 4831 f57v see also the discussion of Demetrius, ff60v–61 below. και ες το παν ερµηνεως µη χαυιζοντα: “for the crowd not needing an interpreter”; Pindar Olympians 2, 85–6 (var); quoted by Coleridge in CN III 4244, The Plot Discovered: Lects 1795 (CC) 310 and LS (CC) 125–6fn.
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two of Holberg’s: If Coleridge has these from his copy of Lessing’s Abhandlungen [über die Fabeln]: “Sämmtliche Schriften (Berlin 30 vols 1784–96) XVIII 103–5—see CN III 3415n—he has considerably shortened and altered them. The first is a fable which Lessing traces down from Aesop through a Persian poet but does not connect with Holberg. The second is taken from Holberg but attributes the furlow to the mother of the devil and concludes only that “no creature is so difficult to be kept in order as a goat”. f59v the oldest fable, that of Jotham: Judges 9:8; cited by Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) I 94n as an example of fables among the ancient Hebrews. Lessing began his notes for a history of fable with this one: Sämmtliche Schriften II 225. Creuzer suggests that the Indian fables are older. Part of the entry at this point is used in Logic (CC) 27–28. Prudentials, not Morals, are the End and Butt of Fables: Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) I 97–8: Tr: The truth of the Änos (fable) is a practical lesson, usually an ethical one. The symbol, of course, has its truth, but not a directly ethical one. Its truth is a deep one, a secret of thought and belief in nature. The fable does not have the kind of depth which is unique to the symbol. affinity between Fable…Pax of Aristophanes: Here Coleridge refers to Aristophanes’ “Plutus [Wealth]”, “The Birds”, and “The Peace”, the last two translated by his friend John Hookham Frere; see Index I in this volume under Aristophanes. η κοινος: “plitical myth or common”; Coleridge probably turned back from Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) I 56 after he had written his Greek phrase, and inserted δηµοσιος; see f60 below. societas in societate: “society within society”; cf Coleridge’s objection to an imperium in imperio e.g. in LS (CC) 170 and n, C&S (CC) 68 n 5. …ιερον yραµµα.—Mυστηριoν: “A philosophic myth is a Mυθος philosopheme. A sacred myth is a priestly allegory, an hieroglyph. A mystery”. Iερευµα appears to be Coleridge’s coinage; the word appears in the draft of the Prometheus lecture originally in N 29, cited in 4823n above. See CN III Gen N and a correction to it below in 4843n. Mνω=claudo…Iliad…ov θυµον: Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) I 52: Tr: may be derived immediately from µύω=claudo (“close”), or from its derivative µύζω; arcans initio; (“I am initiated into mysteries”) or finally from a word of the same origin µύθω, or µύζω musso, clauso ore sonum aliquem per nares edo (“make a sound with closed mouth through the nostrils”). Still the basic meaning remains: a thought not yet uttered, still closed in the mind, to which meaning was added very early the idea of speech, the utterance of a thought. Of this meaning not only the naive Homeric75 expression gives evidence but also the relation of this last word θυµóν (“mind”) to the Greek (“myth”). 75 Iliad XVII. 200 (“He spoke to his own mind”).
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Esquimeaux at this day…dropping a hint: Cf Omniana § 88 I 167–8, in RS’s article “Labrador, where in highly dangerous circumstances Eskimos were alleged to have offered only obscure hints to missionaries to risks they were running”. “Myth=a lying f6o story imitating truth”; Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) I 58n quotes this, from Theon of Alexandria (2nd century A.D.) and Suidas under “Myth”. Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) I 52–3. “I place”, “I express the particular in Tr: Λōγος [“word”], from numbers and thus in words”, hence the basic concept of numbering— adding, calculating and thus of expressive speech, and of the calculating understanding as well, the understanding generally, the reason. κυριολογικος: “literal”, or as Coleridge translates it, “in proper terms”; see 4831 f57v, from Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) I 41; at I 60n Creuzer gives the Greek. icons (εικονες): “pictures”. λογισ µις: “reasoning/calculation”. αποδειξις: “demonstration”; see 4831 f57. Λογος, a credible Report
Mυθος, a rumour: Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) I 57:
Tr: The distinction between λóγος and had already appeared before the perfection of Attic prose. At first the mere saying of something was meant by the word λóγος, without regard for the truth or falsity of its content. Soon, however, a more precise distinction was made, so that λóγος was the truthful saying and on the other hand, the fabricated. Hence λογος εν µυθω: εν µνθω: “word/truth in myth”; Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) 1 58: Tr: And if on the one hand, in some accordance with the most ancient usage, a more precise epithet is often added to the word in order to indicate a fabrication, on the other hand, the two words were regularly used together as a paradox and the truth wrapped up in a fabricated story was called [“truth in the myth”]; and because the myth was often the wrapping of a truth and of a lesson, it was also defined thus: “It is a fiction in which the truth is mirrored….” µνθος δηµοσιος…δηµοσιος…a faction: Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) I 56: Tr: To sum up, the Ionians used (myth) in a multiple sense following from the original idea of thought and speech. They used it to mean “a deliberation”, and they called a public council [“popular myth”]. From this there followed directly, as may be demonstrated from the Ionian writers, the idea of a faction proclaiming
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itself by public speeches; hence they called the speaker and the head of the faction µυθιητης [“relater of myths”]. (cry, Shaks. Coriolanus): IV VI 148, in the sense of “pack”, “faction”. Ionice: “in the Ionian dialect”. Eπος. απο. απω…own focus or center: Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) I 53–4 after his and λóγος quoted above: discussion of Eπος is originally the added, connected word, speech in its order, from (related to and to the old Latin apio, “I connect”, from which aptus, “bound, connected”), which is the same word as the obsolete [“I follow”] with only the breathing changed. In learned usage [“to follow”] still retained the meaning of “connexion, an immediate consequence.” The Latin word sequor retained this latter meaning, which is the same word prefixed with a sibilant. The ancient Romans used sequo and insequo in a sense that was true to the basic meaning for “I say, I speak”, and Livius Andronicus in the first verse of the Odyssey translated as insece [variously translated as “tell”, “sing”, “inform”]. Hence, the Eπος…: Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) I 54n connects the Latin sequor with the German Saga, a “saying” which he says developed through the poet’s song as the epic, and the word (“epic”) signified, as the name of a literary form, its innermost character, its essence, which is a well-connected, well-ordered series. … Make it flow for me… Creuzer Symbolik I 54 (tr): from fluo [“flow”], actually signifies words flowing Finally from the mouth, a relationship which the natural artist Homer so happily expresses in the description of Nestor’s speech: “From his tongue there flowed a sound like the sweetness of honey” as well as in other passages. Creuzer noted (I 54n) that this is from the Iliad 249, Voss’s translation, and gave the German translation only. Coleridge gives the Greek. Creuzer noted that had also spread its roots to the German, perhaps, and it seems to be one word with reden and raten. Cf Logic (CC) 27 and n 4. The possible derivation of Faba, the judicial Bean…: On the judicial Bean, so called because various coloured beans were used for voting, see 4616. Coleridge’s derivation seems fanciful. Creuzer is not the source here. Mυθοι Aισωπικοι: “Aesopic Fables”; for Coleridge’s statement cf Seneca Consolation to Polybius VIII Moral Epistles quoted e.g. by Lessing Sämmtliche Schriften II 229. pretended Phædrus…Perotti’s own composition…: Coleridge was referring here to the controversy surrounding a compilation of fables, some of them attributed to Phaedrus (15 B.C.–50 A.D.), but suspected of being fabrications by Nicolai Perotti, Archbishop of
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Siponto, in the middle of the 15th century (1430–80). Perotti attributed some sixty of the fables to Phaedrus, thirty of which had been known before but thirty of which were new. f60v presumptions against the earlier existence of the Parisian Mss: The first publication of the fables of Phaedrus was by Pierre Pithou (Troyes 1596) based on a ninth-century MS he had discovered in Paris; many scholars were sceptical of its genuineness. Another was discovered in Rheims in 1608. The controversy over the authenticity of these fables went on, mainly in Germany, until well into the nineteenth century. Coleridge is evidently confusing Pithou and Perotti because Perotti’s name was more widely associated with the Phaedrus compilation. Perotti’s MS of his collection of fables, found in 1727, was lost again but eventually rediscovered and first published by Cataldo Jannelli in 1811. and stronger those in favor of it: Stronger than those in favor of it? internal evidence of the Fables themselves: In the controversies Pithou and subsequently Perotti were accused of inventing the character of Phaedrus and the biographical and other allusions to the age of Tiberius and Sejanus; modern scholars accept them as genuine. Perotti’s own conduct…: Or Pithou’s? It is not known what Coleridge had in mind, nor is the source of his knowledge of these controversies known, but a full account of them may be found in L. Hervieux Les fabulistes latins (2 vols Paris 1893) I 38–205. Macpherson & his Ossian: For Coleridge’s early interest in Ossian see CN I 161 [g] and n; and on the disputed authenticity of Macpherson’s Ossian see below 5248 and n. Mυθος πολιτικος η δηµοσιος: “political or popular myth”; see ff59v–60 above. the Aινος: “fable”; see ff59–59v above; Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) I 93n translated the term into German as Naturfabel or Äsopischer Fabel but held that since the German language had no exact equivalent, it was best to retain the Greek word. ut Omnes pro Pluribus: “as All for Many”. Demetrius…sseems to use Symbol and Allegory as Synonimes: Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) I 690: Tr: Demetrius de eloc. par 100ff—“allegory is like darkness and night”; here as well as in par 243 allegory and symbol are synonymous. highest and fullest Sense of Symbol: See 4831 and n. ειδωλον,…εικων,…οµοιωµα: “image in the mind/visible image/picture”; from “substantial image/analogy/portrait”; from “likeness/simile”; see 4831 and n. opposition of προσβολη to διεξοδος: Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) I 66: Tr: It is a single glance; at one blow the intuition stands complete. In Greek, as explained above, this “pictorial word” (προσβολή) served to convey the idea of the pictorial depiction, and for the slow process of the understanding they coined the word διέξοδος, just as fortunate a one, for it suggested a long path. We have borrowed the translation of this from Latin with our term “discursive thinking”. See 4831 f57 above. Demetrius §. 243… “For the following reason the symbol has so much trenchancy. It is similar to brevity in speech, for from that which is spoken briefly the most must be deduced, just as from symbols.” Translated into German
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in Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) I 70n, from Demetrius De elocutione § 243. See f61v below. the mythological I o: See 4839n Theomythics (θεοµυθιαι): “myths of gods”; see 4831 f57; the Greek word θεοµυθίας is translated by Creuzer (Symbolik (1810–12) I 23) as Theomythien. He does not discuss the Io legend. f61 instance of βοντρωτος…: Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) I 71–2: Tr: Helenus” on the flight from Troy, his home city, sought another home during his long, difficult wandering, and finally, on the coast of Epiros, he offered the disembarkation sacrifice. Since the death blow did not fell the sacrificial ox, it broke loose, plunged into the sea, swam across a bay, lay down on the shore, and died. The hero saw it in this sense [as a symbol sent by the gods]…and immediately on that spot laid the foundation stone of his city, which he named, after the wounded ox, Boutrotos [“Ox wound”]. 99 Etymologicum magnum on βουτρωτóς, p. 210… the Life of Homer…: A supposititious work written in the second century A.D. incorporating earlier material. In it Homer is said to have been given the name at Cumae because in the local dialect meant “blind”. The derivation from “not” (rather than Coleridge’s α) and ορος (connected with “I see”), “by metathesis”, comes in Eustathius, Tzetzes, Etymologicum magnum and Stephanus. Suidas has the tale of his being a hostage. ‘Oµήρενoµαι means “I am a hostage”, but it is very “harmonising with like the verb used by Hesiod Theogonia 39: their voices”. The explanation that the name is derived from οµο “together” and αρ “fit”, suggested earlier by Hesychius and Eustathius, was a popular derivation with the “higher critics” of Homer—e.g. Carl David Ilgen (ed) Hymni Homerici Halle (1796) X and Johann G.Herder “Homer und das Epos” Werke (44 vols Tübingen 1820–29) XXVI 338– 9, with the meaning of “a fitter together of songs” rather than I sing in company. This latter may be Coleridge’s own. Cf 4897, 5071 and nn, and cf the annotation on Homeric Hymns (ed Gottfried Hermann Leipzig 1806) vi—vii now in Cornell University Library and on Eichhorn AT II 250—both in CM II. “physiomyths”, or myths of the physical world (as opposed to theomyths). of Dyonis. Halicarn. & Strabo: Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) I 104 n (tr): More appropriate [than Saga] is the Greek expression πατροπαράδοτα [“things handed down from the fathers”] used by Strabo and Dionysius of Helicarnassus. Antiq. Rom. Bk. V Chap 48. And Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) I 107 n: πατροπαράδοτα µεµυθευµένα “ancestral traditions made into myths”. σνµβολαια…Etymon…συµβάλλεσθαι…Definition of Symbol already given: See 4831 and n.
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Demetrius does not say…καθαπερ εκ συµβολων: Demetrius does not say “as symbols” but “as from symbols”; see f60v above; and cf 4831 f57. Plutarch (de genio Socratis)…Plato taught mythically…Venus: Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) I 114: Tr: Myth on the other hand, forsook the lower realm of reality, rose with the rhythm of poetry, and became, on the tragic stage, the medium of ideal creations. Though the practical aims of direct instruction and improvement were foreign to it, it had already in the Epic, implied deep secrets of nature, even under frivolous imagery, as in the story about Ares [Mars] and Aphrodite [Venus]. We must not be surprised, therefore, that even Plato loved to set forth the highest results of his philosophizing in myths…“Here mythological poetry touched the highest truth”136. “Plato spoke many a serious word in myth”137. 136 Plutarch’s words in de genio Socratis p. 589. F. 137 The emperor Julian: see the beginning of his Caesares. the Mythe of Mars and Venus: Cited by Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) I 114 as Ares and Aphrodite; Odyssey VIII 266ff. Cf CN III 3708. f61v Journey of Jove…River Oceanos: See 4794 f34v and n. Creuzer Symbolik (1810– 12) I 115 cites the passage in the Iliad I 422–4 as an example of myth abandoning the instantaneous wholeness of symbols and flowing out into allegory, for Coleridge mixt Symbols. Cf Iliad XXIII 205 and Odyssey I 23. eighth Incarnation of Krishna…Bhogovotgita as translated by Fr. Schlegel: Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) I 117–18: Tr: The great significance of the idea of a World Soul running through all things and connecting them in Ionian philosophy is well-known and that the ancient Orient exerted itself to realise this in physical symbols may be inferred from its whole way of thinking. A fortunate example of a characteristically Oriental expression of this may be seen in a passage from an Indian poem which is as beautiful as it is significant. Krishna, or Vishnu in his eighth incarnation, under the name Bhagavan, reassures a hero with the doctrine of the unchanging eternal One, saying… Creuzer quotes from the poem in German, giving as his source Friedrich Schlegel Über die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier (Heidelberg 1808) 303. Coleridge’s translation into English transposes lines 4 and 5 and omits the first half of line 6, replacing it with his own I, the God-Man, am Center and Circle Too! He uses the German spelling of the title Bhogovotgita (Creuzer Symbolik—1810–12–1 118) rather than the usual English transliteration Bhagavad-Gita. For an earlier discussion of the poem from Charles Wilkins’s translation see Lect 3 P Lects (CC) ff85–88. “In Adam we all die”: 1 Cor 15:22. The Caterpillar & Butterfly…: See f62 below. “Hast thou seen me, Philip…: John 14:9 var.
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Tautegory: See above 4711 and n. golden chain…Speech of Homer’s Jupiter: Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) I 116–18 8 cites this passage from Homer (Iliad VIII 17–26) as an example of a philosopheme conveyed by a series of symbols together constituting a myth or allegory; this is contrasted with the use of multiple independent symbols, each representing the same thing, as in the passage from the Bhagavad-Gita. what had been an Allegory will become a Symbol: See 4711 and n. Florentine Gem…picture-language: Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) I 133–4: Tr: Gems offer the best examples of the connection between symbol and allegory. On them appear symbolic beings, long hallowed by the faith of antiquity and recognized by public opinion, set forth with such attributes or accomplishing such deeds or placed in such situations as relate to some other deep or significant truth. Amor appears with the spoils of Hercules or he carries the globe.165 165 Or Eros and Anteros hold it, as in the Florentine Museum…. the Fish (the Free-mason Symbol (of the early Christians): Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) I 241–2: Tr: It [the fish of the Christians] is generally recognized as a mere acronym from the initial letters of the words [“Jesus Christ Son of God Saviour”] out of which was fashioned IXΘYΣ [FISH]… Abraxas gems & medals of the Gnostics & Basilidians: Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) I 242n: Tr: Here the so-called Abraxes must be considered briefly. They were long held to be ancient Egyptian works, but a thorough examination proved that they were devices of the Gnostics and Basilidians by which members of these sects recognized other members of the group. The Cross at first: Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) I 243. Mnemosynon historicum: “historical memento”. as the Tau in far elder times: Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) I 332–5 points out that the Tau was a very ancient Egyptian symbol about which there has been a wide divergence of opinion, ranging from the theory that it represented a phallus to the Patristic theory that it was a symbol of the true cross. Creuzer adds that it was thought to be a symbol of the four seasons and might have come from India. f62 Psyche,=anima & papilio: “Psyche=soul and butterfly”; cf CN III 3264 and n. Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) I 130–31 summarized the reasons that the Greeks symbolized the soul by the butterfly, as suggesting the free imaginative flight of the mind and the breaking forth from the cocoon a resurrection from death. See PW I 412. a dusky female…known…to be Africa: Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) I 148:
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Tr: Among these we may consider the coins, especially under Hadrian, which so frequently depict a female figure with a scorpion in her hand or with a head-dress of elephant hide, known to the Romans as an image of Africa. the Lily between Joseph & Mary…garment than Blue: Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) I 155–6: Tr: Modern painting has often madethe choice of colours very meaningful…. The white lily growing out of the earth between Mary and Joseph represents by its colour the purity of this union, if indeed this poetic idea has really been used by any artist. But it appears to be an invariable convention of painting that conveys a message that the garment of Mary, as queen of heaven, be blue. Lorenzo’s White, Green, Crimson: Among the numerous Lorenzos in the history of Italian painting, a likely candidate for Coleridge’s reference is Don Lorenzo Monaco, or Don Lorenzo degli Angeli (c 1370–1425), a monk of the Militant Order of the Virgin Mother of Christ living in the Monastery of the Angeli in Florence. He was noted for his many frescoes of the life of Mary painted in brilliant colours; some of them, like the one in the Bartolini Chapel in the Church of S.Trinità in Florence, were famous. “Lorenzo the Monk” is commonly referred to as “Don Lorenzo” without any of the various additional designations of family or city given to other Lorenzos. Coleridge could have seen much of his work in Florence although many frescoes had been destroyed even by his time. Osvald Sirén in his study of Don Lorenzo Monaco (Strassburg 1905) stresses Don Lorenzo’s deep religious feeling and his lyrical portrayal of the inner life in frescoes and miniatures in which colour was painstakingly applied to enhance meaning; but he does not specifically suggest allegory. Was that Coleridge’s interpretation? In some undated notes on “Beauty and the Beautiful” in Egerton MS 2800 f69 he touched on the “subtle and difficult, yet I would fain believe not hopeless investigation …respecting the symbolical characters or Significancy of Colors. But for this I am not prepared—I can merely glimpse it from the Mount Pisgah in the distance”. συµβολαια or pæne-Symbols: Coleridge translates the Greek word as “almost symbols”. Symbols evince the tact of the Poet: For the reading tact, two alternatives have been suggested, i.e., fact, or †act, that is a footnote dagger before the word act; the latter presents the difficulty of uncertain reference for the dagger. The reading tact is at least equally satisfactory graphically, and more Coleridgian in nuance. Cf a note on Aeschylus Prometheus vinctus line 17, in C.J.Blomfield’s edition (CM I 27) where Coleridge said the word seems to my tact too free and easy a word …”, a clear reference to poetic tact. And see the well-known more emphatic “A great Poet must be, implicitè if not explicitè, a profound Metaphysician. He may not have it in logical coherence, in his Brain & Tongue, but he must have it by Tact/ for all sounds & forms of human nature, he must have the ear of a wild Arab listening in the silent Desert, the eye of a North American Indian tracing the footsteps of an Enemy upon the Leaves that strew the
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Forest—; the Touch of a Blind Man feeling the face of a darling Child—….” To William Sotheby 13 July 1802: CL II 810. 4833 29.89 Irritability is frequently discussed in this volume as vital electricity. This entry clearly preceded the material on irritability in 5150, 5189; see also 5168 and n. Durchbruch, Perruptio, Three words for “break-through”. See CN III 4409 § 12 for another use of the first. Huber on Bees: Ditto on Ants: Coleridge apparently did not realize there were two Hubers, François (1750–1831) the father, whose Nouvelles obserυations sur les abeilles (1792) appeared in English translation in 1806, and his son, Pierre (1777–1840), whose work on ants, Recherches sur les moeurs des fourmis indigènes (1810), appeared in English translation in 1820 as The Natural History of Ants. To this latter Coleridge most frequently referred, but in AR 212–14 he described an experiment by François with bees, and quoted immediately from Pierre’s book on ants, as by one and the same author. See the same confusion of Hubers in SM:LS (CC) 19 n1. In a note in the front fly-leaves of Tennemann II, Coleridge enlarged on the form of words here: “The Reason is Anthropomorph, partaking of the Divine: the Understanding an Anthropomorph, partaken of by inferior animals—vide Huber on Bees: and Ditto on Ants” Pierre Huber in his Preface accorded to insects “a sufficient degree of intelligence for the conduct of their domestic affairs”, and said: “Ants, living as they do in society, and entering upon labours that require some degree of unanimity—have they no means of understanding and making known their wants and their situation to their companions?” François Huber’s work described the intelligent orderliness of the community life of bees; and Huber the son suggested in his Natural History of Ants that ants carry still further the “understanding” and “mutual assistance” essential to family and civic life. the Beaver, the Sea-cow, the Dugong, Manati: All are herbivorous water-mammals. Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, Governor of Sumatra, wrote a letter to Sir Everard Home which was read 18 May 1820 to the Royal Society, the account of a dissection of a dugong—a sea mammal—its food being fuci and submarine algae and vegetables found at the bottom of shallow inlets. It “browses upon these vegetables much in the same manner as a cow in a meadow”. “The affection of the mother for its young is strongly marked; and the Malays make frequent allusion to this animal as an example of maternal affection”. Phil Trans (1820) DX 174–82. In the next volume of the Transactions another letter to Sir Everard Home described the manatee of the West Indies, a species of dugong, larger, living at mouths of big rivers, but its food also fuci. Phil Trans DXI 390–1. The dugong was said to taste like roast beef. Some of this material was published also in QJSLA (Jan 1822) XII 370. 4834 29.90 For an early entry on John Brown, see CN I 389 and n. See CN III 4269 and n for a slur on Brown, and in this volume see below 5142 and n, and 5360n. The reference to The Doctrine of Death to which Coleridge objects appeared in The Elements of Medicine: Works of John Brown (3 vols 1804) II 49: pt I Chap III § 29: The termination of excitement, from the exhaustion of the excitability by stimulus, may be either temporary or irreparable, and may arise either from a short continuance of a high degree of stimulus, or a long application of one, the excess of which is more moderate. Both circumstances come to the same thing; the high degree of stimulus
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compensating for the shortness of its application, and the shortness of its application for its greater moderation in degree. The effect of the former is sudden death; of the latter, a more gradual death, preceded by diseases. And though a most exact measure of excitement were kept up, yet death at last, however late, supervenes. plumbëian Despotism: plumbean, “leaden”; OED says “obsolete”. Data, non Intellecta: “Given, not Understood”. 4835 29.91 Though the entry begins as an offshoot from the argument against John Brown in 4834 it is in part (f64v on) a digest of Schelling on the “Allgemeine Deduction des dynamischen Processes oder den Categorieen der Physik” III, esp §§ 6–20 in Zeitschrift für spekulativ Physik I i 104–19, and in the end becomes an essay on the dynamics of the imagination in the process of identifying itself in the world within and, as Kant enjoined, in the world without. Some blurred pencilled marginalia in Coleridge’s copy at this point appear to take issue with Schelling, but because of the state of the MS they add little to this entry. f63v two kinds of Unity, the negative and the positive: Cf C&S (CC) 118–19 n 2, on “unity” and “distinctity”. See That negative Unity, or Allness which arises from the confusion & indistinction of a Multitude of Thoughts…in 4909 f69v. f64 Space: Cf the end of CN I 1379, “The Hebrews called God ‘Space’”. unimage-ableness…the first contra-distinction of the negative from the positive Unities: I.e. the familiar Fancy-Imagination distinction in terms approaching a theistical context. nihil ad hoc: “nothing to this”. abstraction: See 4538, 4657, 4910, 5133 and nn for Coleridge’s approaches to this subject from many directions. See also The Friend (CC) I 520 n 5. f64v punctum Indifferentiæ…Punct[um] Identitatis: Cf on “the point of indiffer0ence” 4705. On “Polarity, or the essential dualism of Nature” see a discussion bearing closely and variously on this entry in TL 51–7. the Line…a thing produced…: See 4513 and n. Each line is for itself a bipolar Integral; On the dynamic principle of individuation treated in TL 42 foll. the Electrical Evolution: Schelling ibid § 20 p 119; see TL 66–7, 87, 90–1. f65 as Form (forma formans) to Shape (forma apparens): See e.g. CN III 4066 and n, 5217 f81v, and Logic (CC) 231–2 fn. 4836 29.92 Miss Booth: Possibly a relative of Sir Felix Booth (1775–1850), who was later to assist Parry in his polar explorations. He occupied Crouch Hall in Highgate, according to Lloyd’s History of Highgate. In April 1819 Coleridge tried to borrow from a “Miss B” a volume of an encyclopaedia containing an article on fluxions; see 4797 above and n; but see also 4606n. Arminian Pelagian: Arminianism opposed Calvinist determinism, i.e. “predestination”, stressing instead the freedom of the will; Pelagianism denied original sin and tended therefore to minimize the influence of divine Grace in favour of man’s own responsibility for his own salvation. See also 5056, 5378 and nn.
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Miss Booth appears to have gone beyond Pelagianism to argue that external circumstances rather than the individual, temptations rather than temptibility are the source of moral evil. The view: I.e. of God’s relation to the individual and to society? See 4708, 4794 on the Nation. f66 mutato nomine: “by a change of name”. 483722.160 Sir William Curtis (1752–1829), a prosperous but everywhere ridiculed alderman, represented various wards in London, and was also M.P. in various seats almost continuously from 1790 to 1826. Coleridge’s squib may have had to do with an episode in 1821 when, for reasons of pride, Curtis, as becoming the Senior Alderman of London, exchanged his representation of the Tower ward, which he had held since 1785, for that of Bridge Without. Coleridge met him in Ramsgate in 1822 (CL V 257). An unlearned, vain, and ostentatious man, he was at the centre of Tory city politics and the butt of innumerable jibes for over thirty years. There are for Coleridge broader implications; see 4707, 5278 and nn. 4838 29.213 Faults on both sides…Honest Tory—Second Edition. London. 1710: The 56-page pamphlet is generally believed to have been by Robert Harley, as W.Scott suggested in his edition of Somers Tracts (1809–15) XII 678, though he admits the possibility also of Defoe. It was a reply to Thoughts of an Honest Tory by the Whig pamphleteering latitudinarian, Benjamin Hoadly, which attacked the Tory measures and ministers of Queen Anne. The reply by Harley was intended to support the incoming government in 1710, by arguing, in the pages Coleridge cites, the stability of public credit regardless of changes of ministry. (Coleridge had in 1821 read Hoadly’s provocative Thoughts, possibly in Somers Tracts, see Inq Sp § 256 and n.) Faults, it is clear, he read in its pamphlet form. (Cf EOT (CC) III 262). Coleridge was interested in paper money and the whole subject of credit (see CN III 4101 and n) and had written on the subject in the Courier in 1811. See a good note in LS (CC) 205n where it is pointed out that not till about the time of this entry (probably 1821) was the return to gold as the basis of currency effected. See 5265, 5330 and nn. His remarks sufficiently and accurately indicate the contents of the pages 37–41 he cites; it seems unnecessary to quote them. who do not themselves eat Onions: Cf Bottom’s injunction, “eat no onions nor garlic, for we are to utter sweet breath”: Midsummer Night’s Dream IV ii 43. Coleridge transcribed excerpts from Hoadly’s pamphlet Thoughts of an Honest Tory (1710), a fragment in BM MS Egerton 2800 f136; see for the text EOT (CC) III 262. 4839 29.214 Coleridge continued to condense and abstract from Creuzer Symbolik und Mythologie der alten Völker but now in the 6-vol revised edition of 1819–23; see 4831 and 4856 and nn. Egypt according to Herodotus…introduced into Greece: Creuzer Symbolik (1810–12) II 282: Tr: Egypt, according to the conviction of Herodotus, was the fatherland of the most important religious practices; the Greeks derived most of their temple divinities from there, and learned from the Egyptians the greater part of their religious ceremonies (11 50–58).
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Perizonius…Pausanias, Corinth. 38.4: Creuzer Symbolik (1819–23) II 284: Tr: First we note the Argive colony from Egypt. If the oldest legends about the Inachidae—about Io, Epaphus, and others—are still hidden in the obscurities of history, those about Danaus are much more certain. This man from Chemmis brought higher culture and civilisation, tillage of the soil, besides divine worship and religious practices to the then wild and desolate region of Argos. In connexion with the latter, I need cite only the Lernaea, an ancient festival connected with wine and agriculture, the founder of which, according to tradition, was Danaus (Perizonius de Origg. Aegyptt. Cap XVI p. 327); and the ’Aπóβαθµοι [Landings], where this Egyptian colonist landed with his children, remained a memorable place in the living traditions of the Argives (Pausanias Corinth. 38, § 4). who likewise speaks…Megarenses of Lelex: Creuzer Symbolik (1819–23) II 284 (tr): “Likewise, the tradition of the Megarenses recognises Lelex, also of Egypt, as their ancestor”. Confirmations of Herodotus…ritualibus: Creuzer Symbolik (1819–23) II 283: Tr: The agreement of the Biblical records in reporting the great antiquity of Egyptian religious institutions is shown in the evidences given by Spencer de Legg. Hebr. rituall. II Diss. I. Sect. 2. our Spencer: I.e. John Spencer (1630–93), Master of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Plutarch’s Objections…: Creuzer Symbolik (1819–23) II 283: Tr: Plutarch gives the opposite view in the main passage in de malign. Herod. p. 857, D.E.Apart from the polemical intent of this whole work, we ask whether the literary authorities here adduced are adequate to refute the Father of History and whether the grounds of objection are historically reliable. Indeed, when we note the contents of other works by Plutarch, we are left with much to ponder—But on the other hand, it should also not be forgotten in this respect that Herodotus drew much from the traditions of the priests of Dodona and that this body of priests had an interest in Egyptianising Greece as fully as possible (cf Heerens’ well-conceived suggestions in his Ideas on Politics, etc., 11 p. 462). I knew the man: Arnold Hermann Ludwig Heeren (1760–1842) was professor of philology when Coleridge was at Göttingen, and then of history in 1801. The work referred to is Ideen über die Politik, den Verkehr, und den Handel der υornehmsten Völker der alten Welt (3 vols Göt-tingen 1793–1812). Thrace. Samo-Thrace…: Creuzer Symbolik (1819–23) II 284–6:
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Tr: Furthermore, the Thracian and Samothracian colonies must be considered here, i.e. the legends about Orpheus and other teachers who are adduced as pupils of Egyptian priests (Diodor. Sicul. I. 92–96). See also Herodotus II 81…who speaks explicitly of the identity of what the Greeks called Orphic and Egyptian…. This viewpoint, to be sure, contradicts not only the more general poetic convention of depicting Thrace as an uncivilised, barbaric land but also the assertions of historians…that the European barbarians were uncivilised, specifically the Thracians, and that the so-called Orphic wisdom is spurious. These assertions are involved with the question of the origins of the family of the Eumolpidae, and in this respect a party arose which would claim the most ancient religious rites for the Athenians and even deny that the Eleusinian came from Thrace. But let us compare these opinions with the information from Herodotus (II 51) concerning the religious instruction which the Athenians had from the Pelasgi, who later lived on Samothrace…. Thrace and Samothrace are still one of the oldest seats of foreign religions, which were thence transplanted southward among the Greeks, despite the fact that the der-ivation of the term θρησκεία “religious rite”, from the Thracians is known to be a mere invention of the grammarians and actually has its origin in the muffled tone of the muttered prayer later connected with the idea of a superstitious formula in a religious service.3 3 See T.Hemsterhuis in Lennep. Etymolog. ling. gr. p. 258 seq… f123 The Attic Colony…: Creuzer Symbolik (1819–23) II 286–7. Tr: The Attic colony…. Read the significant passage in Proclus In Platon. Tim. page 30 giving the various opinions of Theopompus, Callisthenes, and Phanodemus.4 But in Attica the name of the Saitic Cecrops appears along with many others, and in national legends and continuing poetic traditions became the representation of Egyptian-Attic culture—variously embellished, but the historical foundation of this remains unobscured. 4 The two latter historians derive the Saitae from the Athenians, while Theopompus calls the Athenians settlers at Sais. Charax, however, asserts (in agreement with the Egyptians—see Diod. II 28) that the Athenians were colonists from the Saitae and that Sais was the Egyptian name for Athena, whose Egyptian origin some have tried to prove from the symbol of a crocodile which the goddess had on the Acropolis… The Pelasgic Colony…: As in Creuzer Symbolik (1819–23) II 287. Here Coleridge ceased in this entry to follow Creuzer, giving his own counter-theory about the relation between Egypt and Athens; cf 4507 and n.
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Greeks were all Japetidae: I.e. descendants of Japheth, son of Noah; see 4548, 4668, 4866, 4984 and nn, on “Races”. See also Lect 8 P Lects (CC) ff356–359. f122v The Welch Triads: The “Brut Tysilio”, “Brut y Brenhinoedd”, and “Brut Gruffyd ab Arthur” are not, as was once thought, documents of Welsh history but rather adaptations from the Historia Regum Britan-niae of Geoffrey of Monmouth. Coleridge may have first encountered the Triades in the Poems (II 2) of his friend Edward Williams; see CN I 605 and n, 1596n. f122 refined and raised the allegorical…into the proper Symbolic: See 4551 and n. “men of the race”. ιερα γραµµατα: “sacred letters”, i.e. hieroglyphics. per simplicem Intuitum: “by the mere looking at”. Jupiter of Phidias: See 5280 and n. Apollo Belvidere: Like the Jupiter, a stock example of great classical sculpture, taken by many to be also a work of the 5th century, it came, however, with the increasing knowledge of the true classical style, to be recognized as a Roman copy of a Hellenistic bronze. Coleridge may have seen it in Rome. (τo ειδωλικον): “the visual/imagistic”; cf the extract from N25 in 4831n; see also 4832 and n. paramouncy: Also “paramountcy”. OED attributes to Coleridge in a note on Volpone the second instance of the usage, the first since 1667. Belzoni and others…Temple of Tentyra: G.Belzoni Narrative of the Operations and Recent Discoveries within the Pyramids, Temples, Tombs, and Excavations in Egypt and Nubia (2 vols 1822) I 53, describing “the noted Temple of Tentyra”: I should have no scruple in saying, that it is of a much later date than many others. The superiority of the workmanship gives us sufficient reason to suppose it to be of the time of the first Ptolemy; and it is not improbable, that he, who laid the foundation of the Alexandrian library, instituted the philosophical society of the Museum, and studied to render himself beloved of his people, might erect such an edifice, to convince the Egyptians of his superiority of mind over the ancient kings of Egypt, even in religious devotion. Cf CN III 4317 and n. my own Reading from Vossius and Bochart to Gebelin…Dupuis, Creuzer; Gerhard Johann Voss or Vossius (1577–1649). A copy of Samuel Bochart Geographia Sacra (3 vols 1681) is listed as Coleridge’s in Green SC 248; see also 4507. On Gebelin see CN III 3276 and n. Of Antoine Banier and Jacob Bryant we do not know which works Coleridge read but of the former probably The Mythology and Fables of the Ancients explain’d from History (4 vols 1739–40) and of Bryant probably A New System, or, as Analysis of Ancient Mythology (3rd ed 6 vols 1807). On Dupuis see CN I Index I and above 4794 f34 and n; also CL I 260. f121v προπαιδειον: “prediscipline”; see 5121. learnt under FICHTE…emancipated by Schelling: Creuzer was a student at Jena when Fichte lectured there in 1790–91; his debt to Schelling’s philosophy was recognized even in his own day.
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Fichtean pan-egoistic Idealism: See e.g. CN III 4012n. study of the Greek and Italian Neo-platonists: Creuzer’s marked attention to the Greek Neoplatonists rather than to earlier sources was seen by many as a fault; he refers rarely to the Italian Neoplatonists, though he praises Ficino’s contribution, Symbolik (1819–23) I 236. πρωτον ψευδος: ψευδoς: “primary error”; it is true that Creuzer’s Schellingian assumption is carried through most of Book I “Allgemeine Beschreibung des symbolischen und mythischen Kreises”, Symbolik (1819–23) I 3–239. In Chap 1 he appears to assume that Greek polytheism existed from re-motest antiquity; not until Chap V (I 150–6) does he suggest the possibility of an antecedent monotheism. Congener…degener: congener, naturalised into English from Latin, basically means “akin to and equal with”, while degener means “akin to but inferior to/degenerated from”. Congener appears to be Coleridge’s coinage; OED gives an 1837 date for its first use, while degener is given there as a verb (obs) only. Inachus, Cecrops: Inachus was the first of the mythical colonists from Egypt, son of Ocean and father of Io; see above f123n. For Cecrops see f123 above in text. Creuzer Symbolik (1819–23) II 35 traces him also from Egyptian myth to Athenian and discusses his semi-divine and mythical attributes, identifying him with the moon. Brotherhood of Jupiters, and Herculeses: Bryant, e.g., (op cit above) said that according to Tertullian’s Apology 14, Varro mentioned three hundred Jupiters and forty heroes named Hercules. f121 Albert Durer’s…Scripture-history Pictures: I.e. Apocalypse (1498), Great Passion (1510), Life of the Virgin (1510), The Fall (1504), The Nativity (1504), Small Passion (1511), Engraved Passion (1513), Agony in the Garden (1515), Four Apostles (1526). anachronism of Hector who quotes Galen & Aristotle: The reference to Aristotle is in Troilus and Cressida II ii 165–7, to Galen in Coriolanus II i 129–30. flourishing state of the Mathematical Sciences: Prometheus υinctus line 459: “I invented number for them, chiefest of the sciences”. Pythoness: The priestess of Apollo at Delphi; Aeschylus in Prometheus vinctus line 658 has Inachus consulting oracles at Delphi and Dodona, though according to a scholiast on that line oracles did not then exist. Hesione was the wife of Prometheus, line 560; Coleridge may have assumed that she was the same Hesione as the daughter of Laomedon, King of Troy. προσπασσαλεvtion…Caucasus: “being nailed to” the rock. Cf Prometheus υinctus 20, where the scene of the play is set as “a desolate crag” in the “Scythian tract”; later versions of the myth name it as the Caucasus. Prometheus 707–19 foll foretells Io’s future wanderings, “east from this spot” to “the Scythian nomads”, (“until you come to Caucasus itself…). Shem, Ham, & Japhet…: See f123 above. πατροπαραδοτα: “patriarchal traditions”; cf 4832 f61v and n. f120v Λογοι εν µυθοις: “truths in myths”; see 4832 f6o and n. µεµυθε [υ] µενα: “ideas expressed in myths”; cf again 4832 f61 and n. συµβολα: “symbols”. laic, templar and mysterial: St Clement makes this distinction, as does Creuzer Symbolik (1819–23) I 150–95.
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my letters to Hartley Coleridge: Perhaps not entirely lost; see 4843n. θεανθρωποµυeme: “god-man-myth-eme”. Prometheus: The Prometheus of Aeschylus was the subject of Coleridge’s lecture to the Royal Society of Literature, 18 May 1825. Cupid and Psyche: Apuleius The Golden Ass 4.28–6.24 is the earliest surviving version. (Apuleius was born c A.D. 123) 4840 29.216 The entry preceded 4841 on the page, ff120v and 120 having been left blank; see 4839n. There appears to have been no great gap in time. the Hollowness—how any thing at all can be!: The insight has, as frequently with Coleridge, a personal basis; see “I feel my Hollowness” in CN II 2647, and “even in boyhood there was a cold hollow spot, an aching in that heart, when I said my prayers that prevented my entire union with God” in 5275, where the whole entry is illuminating. the Being of God…the Existence of the Supreme Being: In many places (see above 4713 and n) Coleridge makes the distinction between Being [Essence?] and Existence, seeming to support Herbert Read’s contention of Coleridge’s anticipation of existentialist thinking. Coleridge as Critic (1949) 29–30. 4841 29.215 The entry encountered 4840 on ƒ119v and continued below it. Coleridge was referring to and quoting from Otto von Kotzebue A Voyage of Discovery into the South Sea and Beering’s Straits, for the purpose of exploring a NorthEast Passage, undertaken in the years 1815–18 tr H.E.Lloyd (3 vols 1821) I 241, 246–7, 219, 280, 283–4. Quotation marks are inserted, when Coleridge omitted them, to differentiate his comments from Kotzebue’s narrative; he quoted selectively and not literatim, sometimes condensing. E.g. Coleridge’s parenthetical Xns before they are made men the cause of bloody wars (f119v) was Kotzebue’s “the missionaries do not take pains to make men of them before they make them Christians, and thus, what should bring them happiness and tranquillity, becomes the source of bloody wars…” f120 The green Island was Coleridge’s insertion in a paragraph full of interest for him—ice higher than “mast-high”, the mammoth bones (CN I 542) and the extreme meeting in mountains becoming valleys. Kotzebue’s paragraph was quoted by a reviewer in QR for Jan 1822 (published Mar 1822) but that Coleridge here was reading the work itself is proved by much in the entry not extracted in the review. See also 4845, possibly written close to the same time as this entry, but after it, as that comes from Kotzebue Vol II. Kotzebue’s Voyage was announced as “now first published” in LMLA for 10 Nov 1821, an ab hoc date for this entry. A letter of 14 Jan 1831 to Joseph Hughes refers to a later work. “I have been this day reading, ‘Otto von Kotzebue’s New Voyage Round the World’. Colburn 1830. Some two years ago I read his first voyage.” CL VI 1055–6. As there is no known surviving MS of this letter it is impossible to be certain, but “ten years ago” would be a more reasonable reading in the light of this entry. There is no evidence of any use of N 29 in 1828, and ten could easily be mistaken for two in Coleridge’s hand, dating his reading of this work in 1821–2 soon after it appeared. 4842 29.217 Mrs Agnes Ibbetson (1757–1823) was a contributor to the Philosophical Magazine and Nicholson’s Journal especially on botanical physiology. See MC 290 for other respectful but more critical remarks. A note on Tennemann VIII i 130 referring to her “beholdings” took her less seriously. By this date (c 1821) she was a respected elderly figure.
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Her daughter Elizabeth had been informally adopted by Sir George and Lady Beaumont in 1794. 4843 29.218 This entry is in the hand of John Watson, identified by Coleridge’s own note on another example of his holograph in N R, “Marginalia intentionalia” ff3–16v, dated 6 Oct 1833: (now in the Berg Collection in NYPL): “This Book, containing dear dear Watson’s transcript of a MSS Essay of mine on Faith, dear to me as being in his Hand-writing, was given to me, as a Conservatory of Thoughts and Fancies, Sunday Night, 6 Octr 1833.” John Watson died 7 July 1827. See 4989n. Watson transcribed part of Coleridge’s Prometheus lecture, or materials for it, on thirteen leaves preceding this one (f118–118v) they were torn out of the notebook before Coleridge numbered the pages; presumably this leaf and the next (f117–117v) were left behind by accident. Attention must be called to an erroneous attribution in CN III N 29 Gen N, of the handwriting on these pages; it is not Joseph Henry Green’s. This misinformation unfortunately was carried into an account by S.W. Reid of the Prometheus MS, i.e. the torn-out leaves (now in Duke University Library, Durham, North Carolina) in Studies in Bibliography (1971) XXIV 176–83, in an article entitled “The Composition and Revision of Coleridge’s Essay on Aeschylus’s Prometheus”. The error arose in part from the fact that J.H.Green had two distinct hands, apparent from signed letters that have lately come to light and from the Opus Maximum (MS). One of these hands resembles Watson’s. Comparison of the notebook pages with the printed Royal Society Lecture (18 May 1825) on the Prometheus of Aeschylus shows close verbal similarity. The material in this entry and on the preceding excised pages may originally have been part of that “small volume” which Coleridge told Derwent he had written for Hartley to encourage him in getting on with his (Hartley’s) Prometheus; see 4823 and 4839 f120v and nn above. CL V 142–3, also HC Poems II 257–85, and HC Letters 29. If this is the correct understanding of the context of this Watson-transcript entry, it can be dated c May 1821 or a little earlier, and fits into the probable chronology of adjacent entries. [The indistinction or Nature in its lowest] dignity=Nature(1 was: The bracketted first words were on the previous (excised) page now at Duke University. f118v sleep in wb a magnet would be: See 4984 f89v 4929 f30. in Hebrew the Container. Gen 1:2; the word is choshek, carrying the suggestion of “hiding” or “obscuring”. point conceived as…power of the line: See 4513 and n. lux lucifica: “light-creating light”; as in 4854. light so called is a phænomenon’. See 4923, 4558 and nn. Tenebrœ tenebrificantes, σκοτος σκοτοποιον: “darkness-making dark”. Gravitation as the unific power: I.e. as a subsumptive antithesis of light springing out of the division of the original prothesis into thesis and antithesis; see CN III 4418, 4420, and nn; also 4556, 4558 and nn. f118 luminous Bodies…: Gen 1:14–19, which records the creation of the sun, moon, and stars. physiogonist: Not in OED; on physiogony see 5144 f24 and n. “the becoming which eternally creates”, cf gemina natura 4854 f51v and n.
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Identity of light and Gravitation: I.e. as above, interdependent opposites. Gravitation, because it is a polar antithesis of, inheres by implication in Light. Natura essentialis: “nature in its essence”. light in and subordinate to Gravity is Sound: I.e. Light inhering in its opposite gives rise to a new antithesis whose interdependent opposite is colour; see 4929 f30. f117v lux lucifica: “light-bearing light”. NATURA NATURANS…Natura Naturata: See CN III 4397 f50v and n and above 4521 f89v, 4646, 4796 f48v. Sal ubiquitarius: “salt in everything”, “universal salt”. subjective pole: In the Latin sense of “casting under”; i.e. the contrasting, unifying tendency; see 4545 ff45–45v. υis substantifica or corporifica: “substantifying or corporealizing power”; see AR 6 and 4935, 4679 and nn. υis inertiæ: “power of inertia”. sensu Chemico: “in the Chemical sense”. Natura NATURABILIS: “Nature capable of becoming or of being made Nature”. love-struggle & interpenetrative Synthesis: See 5248 f35. κοσµος: “the universe/the world order/the created world”. exponents or representations: See 4530n. 4844 29.219 The quatrain is in PW I 487 var, reading “Whene’er the mist”, in the first line, and preceded by [‘Finally, what is Reason? You have often asked me: and this is my answer’ :-]; the four lines are followed by “But alas!” and the two and a half lines from Dante quoted above in 4786. EHC was basing his text either on another MS or on the “Author’s Appendix” to C&S where these lines were first published and which seems to account for his 1830 date in PW; the reading in C&S is “mist” in line I, not Self as here, and the quatrain is followed there by the lines from Dante as in PW. 4845 18.327 The pen and hand are a little less firm than in 4534–4538. Reason…Understanding of Ma…dictates Peace… Nature…War: Was this the theme that introduced Kotzebue also into the conversation in TT 4 Jan 1823? “Kotzebue represents the petty Kings of the islands in the Pacific ocean exactly as so many Homeric chiefs…. all the kings are supposed to be descended from gods.” Kotzebu’s Voyage, Vol. II–on the new-raised Coral Islands: See 4841 and n; the review referred to there, in QR for Jan 1822, quoted also the striking passage from II 36. Kotzebue, having just described “how much more recently” [than Goat Island, previously visited] a fifth coral island had “arisen”, said, The spot on which I stood filled me with astonishment, and I adored in silent admiration the omnipotence of God, who had given even to these minute animals the power to construct such a work. My thoughts were confounded when I consider the immense series of years that must elapse before such an island can rise from the fathomless abyss of the ocean, and become visible on the surface. At a future period they will assume another shape; all the islands will join, and form a circular slip of earth, with a pond or lake in the circle; this form will again change, as these animals continue building, till they reach the surface, and then the water will one day vanish, and only one great island be visible. It is a strange feeling to
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walk about on a living island, where all below is actively at work. And to what corner of the earth can we penetrate where human beings are not already to be found? In the remotest regions of the north, amidst amountains of ice, under the burning sun of the equator, nay, even in the middle of the ocean, on islands which have been formed by animals, they are met with. Although the paragraph might excite anyone, it is possible that, reading it when it appeared, Coleridge called the attention of some reviewer to this passage and the iceberg passage in 4841. He had some connexions with QR; in the Jan 1822 number (published in March) the first article was a review [by RS], An Account of the Abipones, an Equestrian People of Paraguay. Translated [by Sara Coleridge] from the Latin of Martin Dobrizhoffer, Eighteen Years a Missionary in that Country (3 vols 1822). By the end of 1824 John Taylor Coleridge was the editor of the QR. 4846 20.50 Here the notebook was reversed and Coleridge wrote from the back of it. At the foot of f45 this entry encountered (on f44v) entries 20.51–4, i.e. CN III 3408–3411 of late 1808 or early 1809, so that it was continued on ƒ45 in lines squeezed into a space at the top of the page, above the beginning of the entry and in the gutter. For Coleridge’s distempered Sleep and the Remorse felt in it, see Pains of Sleep: PW I 389–91. See 4689, 5360, 5375 and nn. Co-inherent is attributed by OED to Coleridge, Chap IX BL (CC) I 143, co-inherence to AR, because the Shedd edition of AR (Works I) prints as App C to AR the (earlier) TL; co-inherence appeared in TL 57. 4847 20.55 Diderot’s Dialogue in Goethe’s Works: Coleridge appears to refer, not to the first publication of Goethe’s translation of Diderot’s Dialogue with Rameau’s Nephew in 1805, but probably to Vol XX (1819) of either the Stuttgart & Tübingen (20 vols 1815–19) edition or the 26-vol 1816–22 Vienna and Stuttgart edition (Vol XX 1820). But for which final paragraphs he offered his substitution is not clear. In the debate between “Ich” and “Er” at the close, possibly Coleridge pounced on the verb kriechen, extending the bug metaphor on creeping and crawling from the sentence: Ich will sterben, wenn es nicht besser wäre, als zu kriechen, sich wegzuwerfen, sich zu beschimpfen. Tr: I’ll be hanged if that wouldn’t be better than crawling, cringing, and making a butt of myself. Or was he thinking of the statement a few pages earlier? “Der bedürfnize Mensch geht nich wie ein andrer: er springt, er kriecht, er brünnt sich, er schleppt sich und bringt sein Leben zu, indem er Positionen erdenkt und aufführt.” (Tr) “The necessitous man does not walk as others do: he leaps, creeps, crawls, trails along, and spends his life thinking up positions and carrying them out.” The general tenor of distaste for the intentional offensiveness is plain and related to a quick tendency to physical loathing; see e.g. CN III 4073 (Crathmocraulo etc) and CN III 4134. 4848 20.56 Argumentum a consequenti…conjuncta: “The argument from the consequence [is] contradictory to the Wordsworthian dogma that love is desire/lust (of
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the flesh, that is to say) with affection, that is, nothing but Friendship joined with Lust.” The pun— ογον (reasoning against/contradiction) and (Wordsworthian/ worthy reasoning)—is not conveyed by straight translation. See a letter of Mar 1811 to HCR quoting WW in similar vein: CL IV 205. Cf also CN III 3293, 3746, 3777, 3873 and 4335. Ergo, Vir… : “Therefore the Man who lusts after men, or the pederast, loves his boy-lover.” Verbo-digno indignum!: “O abomination! unworthy of Wordsworth!” Jacob to Rachel!: Rachel had a special meaning; see 5184, 5192 and n. In quoting Wordsworth on “Love a vehement appetite for an Object …at the same time esteemed” (see CN III 3989 and n), Coleridge waxed indignant when he thought of the application of such a definition to his feelings for Anne Gillman, but a similar disgust had been aroused earlier; CN I 448, 1822. See also CN II 2495, CN III 3729, 3746, 3873. f43v Alumni (Nurslings) of this truly french School of Morals: Coleridge’s hostility to the effects of French philosophy on French sexual morality was emphatic; see e.g. CN II 2598; Lect 5 P Lects (CC) ff 217–219; SM:LS (CC) 22. Possibly he here touched on an aspect of his emotional conflicts about WW, i.e. WW’s French liaison with Annette, although in March 1802 Coleridge had spent most of a night encouraging WW to free himself and to wed Mary Hutchinson; see CN III 3304 and n. Verbis digni: Coleridge first wrote Verbo, then altered to the plural: Words worth/worthy of words. Elongatio…Estimatæ: Elongation of the male sex organ (that is, of the man who feels the esteem), towards the vagina (that is, of her who is esteemed). WW and Coleridge met in London in Apr 1823 after an interval since 1820; see CL V 272 and n. The material of this entry could represent argument in a personal encounter, and if so, an 1823 date would be supported. 4849 20.1 Scene I: No play, by Coleridge or any other author, has been found with this opening. Sir Luke Limp in Samuel Foote’s farce, The Lame Lover, might speak such words, but does not. The entry is on the inside front cover, not the first leaf, possibly too casual a jotting to be taken as the beginning of a projected work. 4850 20.4 Jottings in the course of a lesson on Latin verse composition, possibly for Henry or James Gillman? Maximos is a word that cannot be fitted into dactylic pentameters or hexameters. The two metrical patterns that follow show acceptable endings for a dactylic hexameter. Coleridge wrote a considerable guide to Latin elegiac verse composition; the MS, now in the Berg Collection NYPL, will be included in SWF. 4851 28.84 In pencil. Paradoxy: Coleridge more often inveighed against it, and once thought of “a treatise on Phrases and their Consequences”, the first of which would have been “the paradox that the greater the truth the greater the libel”. Allsop I 92. αληθεια παρα δοξαν: δοξαν: “truth contrary to expectation/paradoxical truth”. 4852 28.85 Reformed Olio: Is it suggested that the recipe for the stew is as far-fetched as the reform schemes? Harico spelt without the t was a common contemporary English spelling.
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4853 21½.99 In AP 287 υar. The page reference indentifies Leighton’s Works here as the edition (4 vols 1819), a copy of which, annotated by Coleridge, appeared in the Gillman SC. Its whereabouts are unknown, though transcripts of some marginalia were published in LR IV 156–83. Coleridge used at least two other editions, one of earlier date (1748), referred to in a letter of April 1814 to Cottle (CL III 478, 481 and LR IV 156); the other of 1820 he had from Murray in late Jan 1822 and annotated in preparing AR (CL V 205). This last copy is in the BM. For the annotations on all three see CM III under Leighton. In this entry Coleridge was reading Leighton’s Lecture VII, “Of the Being of God”. f51 Vol. IV. The beautiful passage extracted from Seneca, in page 82 is in a footnote and translated in the lecture by Leighton: Whithersoever you turn yourself, you see God meeting you, nothing excludes his presence, he fills all his works: therefore it is in vain for thee, most ungrateful of all men, to say, thou are not indebted to God, but to nature, because they are, in fact, the same. If thou hadst received any thing from Seneca, and should say, thou owedst it to Annaeus or Lucius, thou wouldest not thereby change thy creditor, but only his name; because whether thou mentionest his name or sirname, his person is still the same. Lecture (XI) p. 113: “Of the Creation of the World” (beginning on 112): If we duly consider the matter, and acknowledge the course of the stars, not only to be owing to a first mover, but also that the whole fabric, with all the creatures therein, derive their existence from some Supreme Mind, who is the only fountain of being; we must certainly conclude, that that self-existent principle, or source of all Beings is by all means eternal; but there is no necessity at all, that we should suppose all other things to be coeval with it; nay, if it is not absolutely necessary, it is at least highly reasonable and consistent to believe the contrary. For, that this world, compounded of so many, and such heterogeneous parts, should proceed, by way of natural and necessary emanation, from that one first, purest, and most simple nature, nobody, I imagine, could believe, or in the least suspect: can it possibly be thought, that mortality should proceed from the immortal, corruption from the incorruptible, and, what ought never to be so much as mentioned, even worms, the vilest animalcules, and most abject insects, from the best, most exalted, and most blessed Majesty? But, if he produced all these things freely, merely out of his good pleasure, and with the facility that constantly attends almighty power; how much more consistent is it to believe, that this was done in time, than to imagine it was from eternity? Coleridge added in the margin: “It is inconceivable how any thing can be created in time; and production is incompatible with interspace”. fundamental Idea of my System, and the Conception thence deduced: For Coleridge’s distinction between Idea and the conceptions and deductions of the understanding, see
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CN III 4047, 4058, 4443, and in this volume, 4940, 5271f6 and nn. On his system see 4449, 4450, also 5122. contingent wills (the αποσταται) formed Time: See 5233, 5248 and nn. The following § (113, 114): It is a very difficult matter to argue at all about that, the nature whereof our most enlarged thoughts can never comprehend. And though, among philosophers and divines, it is disputed, whether such a production from eternity is possible or not; there is probably something concealed in the nature of the thing, though unknown to us, that might suggest a demonstration of the impossibility of this conceit; for what is finite, in bulk, power, and every other respect, seems scarcely capable of this infinity of duration; and divines generally place eternity among the incommunicable attributes of God, as they are called: it seems, to be sure, most agreeable to reason, and, for ought we know, it is absolutely necessary, that, in all external productions, a free agent, the cause should be, even in time, prior to the effect, that is, that there must have been some point of time wherein the being producing did, but the thing produced did not exist. As to the eternal generation, which we believe, it is within God himself, nor does it constitute any thing without him, or different from his nature and essence. Moreover, the external production of a created being of a nature vastly different from the agent, that is supposed to produce it, and to act freely in that production, implies, in its formal conception, as the schools express it, a translation from non-entity into being; whence it seems necessary to follow, that there must have been some point of time, wherein that created being did not exist. f51v taking Eternity as a sort of Time: A logical confusion which Coleridge noted elsewhere, e.g. CN III 3973 and n; very early he said that Eternity and Time are heterogeneous, and to consider Eternity a kind of Time is a metaphysical absurdity. See Lects 1795 (CC) 343; also 4644 and n. as simul et totum to pars and successive: as “simultaneously and whole” is to “part and successively”. 4854 21½.100 The entry is apparently triggered by Coleridge’s reading of Leighton Genuine Works (1819) I, “A Practical Commentary on the First Epistle General of Peter”. See the preceding n, also 4909 and n. …: “Verily the blood of Christ, according to Luke (Acts of the Apostles) is the blood of God.” Acts 20:28, referred to by Leighton I 10; see also 4626 and n. On Luke’s authorship of Acts see e.g. below 5426 f49n and n. agens=Jehovah Memra: “Christ acting=Jehovah Word”. George Bull Defensio Fidei Nicaenae (see CN III 3968n) Bk I Chap I §§ 18–20 cites the Targums as using the Chaldee word mimor, mimora (Word) to indicate a divine person speaking among men. Sol intelligibilis, Lux lucifica: “the intelligible Sun, the Light creating light”; cf Mal 4:2, John 9:5.
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Cosmos (Sol) sensibilis, Lux elucens: “the sensible Universe (Sun), the Light that merely lights”. Sermo realis, Verbum phaenomenon: “The Word (or speech) as thing, the Word (or verb) as phenomenon”. the Fit of the Facient: “the it-is-done of the doer”. fit et facit, creat et creatur—gemina natura: “It is made and it makes, creates and is created—twin nature”. See CN I 1382, where Coleridge referred the phrase “et fit et facit et creat et creatur” to John Scotus Erigena De divisione naturae (Oxford 1681) Bk I, p 7; see CN I 1382n. Cf also The Friend (CC) I 115–17, 146, 471, II 80 and nn, from which it is clear that the phrase gemina natura (“twin nature”) is from Giordano Bruno. Erigena was writing not of “twin nature” but of “divine nature”, and attributes “et fit et facit” etc. to “the books of the Holy Fathers”. Cf also 4521. f52 Xριστος agens is=Anima Animans, Calor fovens: “Christ acting =the life-giving soul, the cherishing heat.” Xριστoς patiens…Vis assimilans assimilationem patiens: “Christ suffering=the principle of reproduction into life in the passive form—the element, as aliment, of life— The assimilating force suffering assimilation”. (“Christus patiens” is a common theological term for the Incarnation, as well as the Crucifixion.) Vis υitæ superioris…ad actum assimilandi: “The superior life-force suffering assimilation but at the same time exciting to the act of assimilation.” The Blood: See Coleridge’s physiological interest in 4825, 4646, and theological in 4909 f70. the Absorbents: See 4825 and n. aura υitalis per pulmones: “the vital air through the lungs”. Spiritus Confortans: “Comforting Spirit”, John 14:16, 26; 15:26 and 16:7. Allen & Pepys versus Priestley & Lavoisier: The reference is to experiments described in Phil Trans (for 1808) XCVIII 249–81: “On the Changes produced in Atmospheric Air, and Oxygen Gas, by Respiration”, by W.Allen, Esq. F.R.S. and W.H.Pepys, Esq. F.R.S.Some eighteen experiments are described, and general deductions made on the relation of oxygen, carbon dioxide, hydrogen, nitrogen, etc., to life and breath, concluding that “oxygene does not permeate the blood”; also “that as the oxygen decreases in quantity, perception gradually ceases, and we may suppose that life would be completely extinguished on the total abstraction of oxygen” (280). In a marginal note on G.A.Goldfuss Handbuch der Zoologie I 26–7 (see 5171n), Coleridge referred to these experiments of Allen and Pepys “proving that in Breathing the Blood decarbonates itself by an exudation of Carbon on the surfaces of the Airvessels, without any O. [xygen] entering the Vessels or combining with the Blood.” See 4646 f7 and n. de Oxygene non in sanguinem permaente [permeante]: “of the Oxygen’s not permeating into the blood”. The Divine Apis: By one of his Rhodian leaps Coleridge finds examples in the Ruminants and the sacred bull of Egyptian mythology. f52v Blind Man…Saliva: John 9:6. Cf 4611, 4612, 4719 and nn. Quarles, Withers…Fuller: On Quarles see below 4975–4981 and nn and Ashe Miscellanies 249–50; on George Wither C&S (CC) 101 and TT for 25 June 1831 fn. On this view of Fuller see CN III 3596n and 4857 and n.
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not—but… “not only a lack but the contrary of… this love of decorum”; for Coleridge’s symbols see App A. an Edipus Ægyptiacus: Coleridge seems to enjoy an example of the opposite of “love of decorum” in his elaborate punning—i.e. Fuller in the style of Athanasius Kircher’s farfetched attempt to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics (i.e. Edipus Ægypticus 3 vols Rome 1652–4) would have given a riddle-solving Egyptian identification of Hermes (Mercury Trismegistus) with the Logos, of Mercury, the chrism, ointment, or anointment (Xρίσµα) with Christ, the anointed Mercury as ointment producing Salivation. Salυeation. and Salυation—as remedy for syphilis, Gout or defective taste; see again 4611, 4612, 4719 and nn. Indifference of the Vis Vitæ and the Principium Vitœ: the meeting point of the “Life Force and the Principle of Life”. Vis υitam ciens: “the Force which gives rise to life”. Principium υitæ…Principium statûs; “the excitable Principle of life (the capacity to live, given the conditions?) The principle of origination [of life] is also the Principle of the state [of being alive].” It is clear that for Coleridge respiration raised dynamic vs mechanist interest. He saw oxygen in combination as interactive, and did not believe in the independence of any single chemical element in vital processes; he believed that Oxygen was negative in potence, Carbon positive. Another note on Goldfuss Handbuch der Zoologie (2 vols 1820), not in the margins but on a detached leaf (BM Add MS 34,225 f148v), discussed contemporary argument about oxygen, blood, and respiration: Goldfuss Handbuch der Zoologie P. 25 § 2 welchem ein grösserer Antheil an Sauerstoff zukommt? In proportion to the Quantity of Carbon?—; For the venous Blood becomes arterial by losing a portion of its Carbon—But if so, the sentence is superfluous & it was enough to have said, that the venous blood “ist kohlenstoff haltiger als der Arterien Blut—I make this remark from Jealousy that the PriestleioLavoisierian Chemistry which owed its success to its in every sense of the word imposing Simplicity, in fact the Leanness and Poverty of Abstraction, not the Simplicity of Nature, still exercises an influence even on the professed Converts to this Zöo-dynamic Philosophy. Thus in the present instance Foot-of-Gold attributes a positive potence to Oxygen, which I am convinced, is the Coefficient of the Negative (material) Factor of Life—i.e. of Carbon. Material Factors of Organization Positive—Azote or Nitrogen Negative—Carbon Co-efficients Co-efft of P.F—Hydrogen Co-efft of N F—Zote or Oxygen The not yet thoroughly ascertained part which Oxygen plays in Respiration, and the mode of its operation on the surface of the Lungs in removing the exuded—whether Carbon simply according to Allen and
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Pepys—or Carbonic Acid according [to] the more recent experiments & inferences of Dr to be carefully distinguished from its operation in the System, as a constituent part of the Body. Even according to Edwards’s theory it is not the Oxygen, but the removal of the Oxygen with the Carbon, that acts indirectly as a positive Agent. State it as Capital Debt—& that there is 7 Cap. and 5 Debt—by subtracting 2 from 5, I in effect make the Capital=9. For 7−3=9−5. Acids generally weaken and lower the power of are the anti-pole to Spirits— /Yet as the representative of the Contractive Power they may act as Tonics, Bracers: and by the very lowering of Life increase the excitability. 4855 21½.101 f53 The difference between Refraction and Disper-sion…: the difference between the refracting or bending of a light ray on passing from one medium to another and the dispersal arising from the varying refrangibility of different colours. LIGHT & WARMTH. The relations between light and warmth were of great interest to contemporary natural philosophers, e.g. Thomas Thomson System of Chemistry (3rd ed 1807) III 401–2; Thomson has a discussion of “Inflection, Reflection, and Refraction” at III 390–92. See 4873 below. Coleridge may have been started on the train of thought here by two articles in QJSLA V (1818): “Observations on the Rays which compose the Solar Spectrum” 77–81, and G.W.Jordan “On the Colours of Waters” 81–99. The latter raised points about “dispersion”, “reflection”, “refraction” of light, the blue of the sky becoming black, shadows at sunset in decreasing light, the intense blue of the sky on a bright cloudless day changing to white at the horizon, “blackness or absence of colour”; there are other similarities of thought and phrasing. On pp 77–81 there is also an abstract of a paper by J.E.Bérard discussing relations between heating rays, rays of light, and chemical rays. For evidence that Coleridge read this volume see above 4634 and n. Coleridge had tried in CN III 3606, 4418, 4420, 4456 to work out a chemicotranscendental theory of light. But his work on colour was as inconclusive as that of most of his contemporaries, for the reasons he gives in his last paragraph here. CN II 3116, reading Newton on light in Phil Trans—he owned the 3rd ed (1721) of the Optics—he was uncertain what produces colour. Perhaps for this reason he turned from physics to practical technical aspects in CN III 3606 when he seems to have used in English translation Berthollet’s Elements of the Art of Dyeing; see CN in 3606n. He borrowed a copy of Goethe’s Farbenlehre for his philosophical lectures in 1819, but he had been inquisitive about light and colours, and attacked Newton’s theories in 1801, before Goethe or his reading of Goethe. See CL II 709–10. See also Phil Lects (1949) 53–5, 62– 3, P Lects (CC) Lect 5 n 33, Lect 7 n 41; see also below 4873 and n. His interest in the chemistry of colours appears also in 4570, which draws some of its vocabulary from the polarity principle of the Compass of Nature, as also 4722. Then in the early 1820’s Coleridge found the principle of polarities applied to colour by the Naturphilosophen and developed further than by the Greeks, or by Goethe; see 5290, 5446, 5447 and nn. But in this entry it appears that Oken raised more questions for him than he answered.
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Oken’s Doctrine: See especially Über Licht und Warme als das nicht irdische, aber kosmische materiale Element. Erste Ideen zur Theorie des Lichts, der Finsterniss, der Farben und der Warme (Jena 1808). Coleridge’s annotated copy is in the BM. Oken’s essential position was stated on p 14: Tr:…light does not consist in a merely mechanical refraction, diffraction [deflection] and dispersion of the rays (in einern bloss mechanischen Brechen, Ablenken, Zerstreuen der Strahlen), but in a chemical act, that operates in the inmost [reaches] of matter, and changes it not simply by heating and thus expanding it; but by a spiritual (geistige) action, by polarisation, whence chemical changes proceed. Here I speak strongly and severely but not unjustly against Newton, just to make scholars seriously aware of the hitherto accepted theory of light. In what follows I shall quite quietly refute Newton’s teaching. Although Coleridge’s views were closer to Oken’s and Goethe’s dynamic theories than to Newton’s, he reacted sharply against Oken’s tone here. For a marginal note on Oken’s Erste Ideen zur Theorie des Lichts (Jena 1808) to this effect see Inq Sp § 194. “As Red to White and Black…” Oken’s Doctrine: Perhaps Coleridge did not have the work in front of him; either he misremembered or misread. Oken said (39) that black and white are the extremes of the spectrum and all real colours lie between, leaning to white or to black, and that the basic colour between (Grundfarbe) is red (40). Tr: Yellow is the tension (Spannung) of red inclining to white; blue is the tension of red inclining to black; or yellow is a whitish and blue a blackish red. These are the three colours, the three sole colours in nature; all others are transitions or mixtures of them. Green is the mixture of yellow and blue, the culmination of these two colours, while red is its base, hence the correspondence and opposition between red and green. f54 In both Yellow…Violet: Coleridge was condensing and articulating more precisely Oken’s 39–40; he commented in the margin of 40: These, even these are the passages that annoy me in the Naturphilosophen! Yellow a white, and Blue a black, Red!! It is true, I know which Oken means by the words—but why Oken chose such words to convey such meanings, I do not know—tho’ Vanity is so common a foible, and Quackery so ordinary a symptom & effect of that so common Foible, that I can pretty well guess. Goethe, & then Schelling & Steffens, had opposed to the Newtonian Optics the ancient doctrine of Light and Shadow on the grand principle of Polarity—Yellow being the positive, Blue the negative, Pole, [[and]] Red the Culmination Oken follows them—but stop!—He
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waits, till they are out of sight. Hangs out a new Banner (i.e. metaphor) and becomes a Leader himself. Oken’s description of the spectrum being far from clear, it seems necessary to quote the German. Possibly Coleridge was thinking of 42: “Das der licht Schatten wesentlich die rothe Farbe ist, so verhält sich das Roth zur Gelb und Blau wie die Sonne zu den Planeten, wie das Centrum zur Peripherie, also wie der positive Pol zum negativen.” (Tr) “Since the light shadow is essentially the red colour, red relates to yellow and blue as the sun does to the planets, as the centre to the periphery, hence as the positive pole to the negative.” Black and white are polar opposites for Oken (45) and they are colours: (tr) “White and black are universal colours—white is total tension of aether with matter; black is total rest of aether with matter.” ff53–53v gives us White= +the minimum of Anti= the least quantity necessary to…Light: Coleridge pencilled a note on Oken 43 opposite the sentence, “Das Durchleuchtige ist aber entweder in Action, Spannung oder in Ruhe; im ersten Falle ist das Durchleuchtige das Lichte, im zweiten das Finstere” (“However, the transparent is either in action, tension or rest; in the first case the transparent is the light, in the second the dark”). He said: “Aristotle’s “The transparent in energy/activity=light”. At this point Coleridge’s thoughts have gone back to Aristotle’s De anima (CN I 973A) II vii 418b. After an explanation of what light is, and transparency, Aristotle said: “Now light is the activity of this transparency qua transparent. Potentially, wherever it is present, darkness is also present…. Light is considered to be the opposite of darkness; but darkness is a removal of an active condition from the transparency, so that obvious light is the presence of such an active transparency…” Tr W.S.Hett Aristotle On the Soul etc (LCL 1935) It is possible that the De anima at this point lies behind some of Coleridge’s speculations in 5290 below also. Coleridge’s N.B., encircled in ink, suggests that, having written the entry to a conclusion which casts doubt on the validity, in the present state of our knowledge, of many of Oken’s specific theories and of his own, he felt that what remained of value in his exercise was essentially a linguistic distinction of more farreaching significance than any ephemeral concepts of colour. f54 An Ellipse of Color—From white to Black: Cf Oken ibid 38–40: Tr: No more than two extreme colours can exist, just as there are only two extremes to the existence of aether. Aether in its tension is light absolutely, pure, clear, colourless light. Earthly tension of light in its perfection is colour absolutely, blackness. Thus white and black have the same relationship as light and dark, are to each other in the earthly sphere what the latter are in the cosmic. Both are the earths (?) of earthly conditions of light and hence, because they are not intermediate things, scarcely to be called colours; they are the primordial colours. Spannung: Oken (ibid) passim; see esp 38–39 above and 20:
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“Die Spannung des Aethers, (verursacht durch die Sonne, deren Fortleitung aber bedingt durch den Planeten,) erscheint als Licht” (Tr) “The tension of the aether, (caused by the sun, although its propagation is determined by the planets,) appears as light.” f54v The distinction, however, between Black and Dark: See Oken, as quoted ibid, 39 above. In the Newtonian scheme, both black and dark signify the absence of all colour and light. Oken’s discussion 41, of dark in relation to the prism, is confusing: Tr: The prism is a dark body, which is held against the light and which bends, breaks and scatters light both absolutely and within it, that is, it darkens the tension of light; for light does not pass mechanically through a prism as water does through a sponge—although even this is not entirely mechanical—but by means of a process in which it is transformed in its innermost being. The light and the dark blend with each other so closely in the prism, become solely one substance, that its shadow falls on the wall as a hybrid between darkness and light, and hence is necessarily coloured—the colour-image is a coloured shadow. This prompted Coleridge’s marginal comment, “—that its shadow is not a shadow?” The point was a major one for Coleridge, involving as it did the concept of light and darkness in active, dynamic polar opposition. Hence this last paragraph and, because of his sense of the scope of the problem of the Prismatic Spectrum, his tentativeness. 4856 21½.102 The entry is a condensation and conflation of various passages in G.F.Creuzer Symbolik und Mythologie der alten Völker (2nd ed 6 vols Darmstadt 1819– 23). Coleridge knew and used the earlier edition of 1810 (see 4831 and n) but references cited below indicate that here he was using the later edition throughout. The Plough Ox…forbidden to be slaughtered by Triptolemus: Creuzer Symbolik IV 440–79 gives an account of the Thesmophoria, a festival celebrated at Athens and throughout Greece, in honour of Ceres as Thesmophoros (“law-bringer”); the legal division of land was an important aspect of agriculture. Creuzer Symbolik IV 125 connects Triptolemus with the Plough Ox and the Thesmophoria: Tr: In connexion with the significance of that remarkable ceremony in Athens [i.e. the slaughtering of the ox, referred to below], we may first notice that it followed on the Eleusinian Mysteries…; it was indeed Triptolemus, the darling of Ceres, who laid down the law to spare the plough-ox. This injunction was also a law of the Thesmophoria…. σνζνyια: “of the yoke”, a common symbol of marriage in ancient Greece, the yoke being the epithet of Hera as goddess of marriage. Creuzer Symbolik (1819–23) I 132–3. the slaughtering Priest…as the Culprit: Creuzer described the rite celebrating the first slaying of an ox. An ox had eaten the offering on the Altar of Zeus Polieus and had been killed by the indignant priest Thaulon. He had fled, for the penalty for killing the helpful draught animal was death. Creuzer Symbolik (1819–23) IV 123–4:
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Tr: Thereupon Attica was plagued with drought and famine. The oracle at Delphi was consulted….the fugitive himself had to remove the evil. He was brought back and undertook to slaughter an ox in the name of the state for the first time. And from then onwards the following rite was observed at the annual Diipolia: female water bearers brought the water for the axe and the knife to be sharpened. Then someone handed the axe to the slaughterer, who felled the ox and fled; a third butchered it. Thereafter all ate of its flesh. After the meal the ox’s hide was stuffed, and the ostensibly restored animal was hitched to a plough. There followed the “court of the ox”…. All participants were accused. Each blamed the guilt on another: the female water bearers blamed the sharpener of the axe and knife; the sharpener blamed the deliverer of the slaughter knife; the deliverer blamed the butcher; the butcher finally blamed the knife. The knife, as it could not speak, was condemned and thrown into the sea. Had Coleridge a special feeling towards this rite as symbolizing the breaking up of an unhappy marriage? See CN III 3648. Deodand?: Coleridge asks himself whether the word from English law applies here. By an English law, repealed in 1846, a personal chattel, when found to have caused the death of a person, was declared “to be given to God”—i.e. forfeit to the Crown to be applied to pious purposes. Hereditary Priesthoods & Dign[ities]. Eumolpides, Butades (Buddha), Kyniden, κηρυικες: Creuzer Symbolik (IV 355–62) discussed these “Altattische Priestergeschlechter—Eumolpiden, Ceryces, Eteobutaden”. Coleridge seems to have been using Creuzer, not working directly from Greek sources. Creuzer (Symbolik IV 349) wrote that the Eumolpidae were said to be descendants of Eumolpus (“singer”), hereditary priests who presided as singers at the Eleusinian Mysteries. The Butadae, in Creuzer Symbolik (1819–23) IV 361, were hereditary priests and priestesses of Poseidon and Athena, descendants of and successors to Butes, king of Athens. The Butadae were the mere successors, the Eteobutadae the actual descendants, or “true Butadae”. Creuzer does not mention the Kynnidae (Coleridge’s Kyniden), an hereditary priesthood of Apollo, but Coleridge’s attention may have been called to them by Creuzer’s discussion (Symbolik IV 357–60) of the Kerykes (Coleridge’s κηρυικες), a priestly family said to be descended from Keryx, “herald” or “messenger”. Creuzer connects the Kerykes with Hermes and his Egyptian equivalent, the dog-headed Anubis. This may have reminded Coleridge of the Kynidae, who, so misspelled, might etymologically be “descendants of the dog (kynos)”. Creuzer elsewhere in Symbolik (1819–23) I 375, 579 identifies Hermes (Anubis/Thoth) with Buddha. Buddha: Pandu:: Butes: Pandion: “Buddha is to Pandu as Butes is to Pandion”. In Symbolik (1819–23) IV 361–2 and II 648–9 (not in the 1810 edition), Creuzer suggested that Buddha was the ancestor of the Butades and that the war between the Kurus and Pandus of ancient India was connected with the descendants of Pandion carrying sunshades in the service of the Sun—Athena. the High Priest originally the King: Creuzer Symbolik (1819–23) IV 362–94 discussed the identity of kingship and priesthood in ancient Greece; former kings retained their priestly functions.
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different struggles of the Gods, different religions: E.g. the war between Eleusis and Athens was a war of Poseidon against Athena. (Creuzer Symbolik IV 342–54). Confusion of the Lip, Babel: Gen 11:1–9. All of Ham. and Canaan: I.e. all the Hamites and the land of Canaan. According to Gen 9:18–27, Ham (Canaan) was cursed for gazing on the nakedness of his father, Noah. The meaning of the story has been much disputed in biblical and literary criticism. faithless Shemites given up to the superstition of those, with whom they had intermarried: For Coleridge’s view of the “degeneration” of the races by the intermarriage of the Shemites and Canaanites see e.g. 4548 and n. Physiotheism: Not as in OED, “physitheism”, “making a god of the natural world”. 4857 21½.103 One of the very strongest arguments against the Unitarians…their main bulwark: I.e. that they reduce the transcendent in Christianity to the mechanical, imaginative Faith to Evidence and consistency. Their lack of abstraction and imagination reminds Coleridge of the Oriental idolatry. Cf 1000 arms and retinacula (f55v) with 5200 and 4750; also Lect 3 P Lects (CC) ff85–88. radical truths…leaf…Tree of Life…Feuille mort…milky bosom of the Tree: A sustained biological metaphor even for Coleridge. Possibly he was thinking of the South American tree with the milky resin from which India rubber Caoutchouck is made (see below f56), for he was reading Humboldt’s Travels; see 4864 and n. The phrase milky bosom sis associated subliminally perhaps with that warmth and sense of vital nourishment which he missed in Unitarianism. f55v retinacula: Retinaculum is first cited in this sense by OED as a new word in 1825 (T.Say); it was used by K&S (see 4879n) III (1826) 391. f56 a fullerism: I.e. a good earthy metaphor; see 4854 f52v above, and cf CN III 3596 and n. the divine Caoutchouck: Charles Hatchett (see 4580, 4646 and nn) wrote scientifically on the then new resinous substance that became known as India rubber. Book of the Accusing Spirit: In Rabbinic lore there are two records in Heaven, the Book of Life and the Book of Death, e.g. in Jubilees 30:20–22; I Enoch 81:4; and Ascension of Isaiah 9:22. The Talmud (Rosh Hashanah 1:49) mentions three, adding one for those whose cases are undecided. On having one’s name blotted out of the Book of Life, see Ps 69:28 and Rev 13:8. infra-Mohammedan race…: The disjointed prose of this last paragraph seems to repeat the theme that Unitarianism denies the essence of all higher religions. Theanthropism: See CN III 4005, 4255; OED attributes to Coleridge in Chap XXIV BL (CC) II 246 the earliest use. Asa-man Odin…into Odin Alfader: Asa-man is “God-man”, the prefix being Old Norse, as the Al-fader is “All father”. See 5256 f63 and CN I 170. 4858 21½.104 Reginald Scot appended “A new excellent Discourse of the Nature and Substance of Devils and Spirits in Two Books”, to the third edition of his The Discovery of Witchcraft (1665). Coleridge here summarized selectively. The full title is the best description of the nature of the work: The Discovery of Witchcraft: Proving, That the Compacts and Contracts of Witches with Devils and all Infernal Spirits or Familiars, are but Erroneous Novelties and Imaginary Conceptions. Also discovering, How far their Power extendeth in Killing, Tormenting, Consuming, or Curing the bodies of Men, Women, Children, or Animals, by Charm, Philtres, Periapts, Pentacles, Curses, and
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Conjurations. Wherein Likewise The Unchristian Practices and Inhumane Dealings of Searchers and Witch-tryers upon Aged, Melancholly, and Superstitious people, in extorting Confessions by Terrors and Tortures, and in devising false Marks and Symptoms, are notably Detected. And the Knavery of Juglers, Conjurers, Charmers, Soothsayers, Figure-Casters, Dreamers, Alchymists and Philtrers; with many other things that have long lain hidden, fully Opened and Deciphered, All Which are very necessary to be known for the undeceiving of Judges, Justices, and Jurors, before they pass Sentence upon Poor, Miserable and Ignorant People: who are frequenly [sic] Arraigned, Condemned, and Executed for Witches and Wizards. Astral Spirits: Scot wrote that except for “the Sadducees and Peripateticks, who deny that there are any Devils and Spirits at all”, such ancient writers as Plato, Proclus, Plotinus, Porphyrie, believed in Astral Spirits, as did also the Romans, Church Fathers, Rabbins, Schoolmen, Papists, etc. In fact he lists most of the peoples of the world. Paul’s Words: Probably Col 2:18. Scot wrote: …wherein they [the Christians] meet and agree jump with the Papists; as if you read the notes upon the second chapter to the Colossians, in the Seminaries Testament printed at Rhemes, you shall manifestly see, though as contrary to the Word of God as black to white, as appeareth in the Apocalypse, where the Angel expressly forbad John to worship him. water-blood at the Cross: See 4854 and 5172 and nn. undoubted belief of all the Fathers of the Church for the first 5 centuries: Scot passim pointed out that the worship of saints amounted to belief in astral spirits. Exquisite passage…only these Astral Spirits—?—: Cf Scot 50 Bk II Chap IV: 4. Innumerable are the Spirits that inhabit the Aiery Region, germinating amongst themselves as Magicians affirm, and begetting one another after a Mystical manner. It is their property to be instant in storms and boistrous weather…Besides they march in mighty Troops through the Aiery Region, waging warr amongst themselves, and destroying one another beings or Existences, after which they are reduced to the primary source or nature of the Starrs…. 5. And doubtless from hence arise the various deceptions that men are incident unto in their judgments of Apparitions, perswading themselves that they are portents and foretokens of Warr and Famine, when such numerous Spirits are beheld Fighting or Marching either in the Air, Earth, or Water: whereas it is nothing else but the bare effect of the Natures and Tempers of such Aerial beings to fight and randevouse immediately after sun-set or else later in the Summer evenings, which is their principal time of such Conventions. 4859 21½.105 The Cephalopodes want the Optic nerve (Sehneru): The optic nerves of the cephalopods were disputed, and described generally as a fibrous knot behind the brain, rather a part of the brain than of the optic nerve. Apparently Coleridge was reading some pre-1817 German zoologist, for Cuvier in providing the first precise classification
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of the molluscs in La Reigne animal (Paris 1817) described the cephalopods II 361 as having “innumerable optic nerves”. Oken’s curious nomenclature does not include cephalopods; nor does Blumenbach discuss them in his Handbuch der Naturgeschichte (1817). Goldfuss (see 4854n) refers to them, but as having “Sehnerven” (I 671). Treviranus in his Biologie v (see 5341) uses the term throughout. Coleridge’s source for his statement has not been found. 4860 21½.106 In AP 287–8. As Coleridge’s interest in Spanish literature was clearly indebted to RS’s wide knowledge of it, it is possible that this entry was set in motion— little more than that—by a review by RS in QR April 1821 of a collection of Spanish plays El Teatro Espanol (Nos I–XX; 1819, 1820, 1821). The information in the first paragraph on Spanish history appears variously in too many places to justify any specific attribution; however, Coleridge’s reference to the meteoric existence of their Literary Age chimes with RS’s description of Calderon as “an extravagant meteor, most lofty indeed in his course, but entirely eccentric in his motions; most brilliant, but airy and unsubstantial” (QR XXV 15). RS was controverting A.W. Schlegel’s admiration (in his lectures of 1818) for Calderon. In this review RS did not refer to the general link between Christianity and literature, which concerned, in different ways, both Schlegel and Coleridge. Neither Sismondi in his De la littérature du Midi de l’Europe (4 vols Paris 1813), nor Bouterwek Geschichte der schönen Wissenschaft (Göttingen 1801–10) dealt in any depth with the patronage of learning under such Caliphs in Spain as Hakem II, though both refer to the brilliance and brevity of the twocentury period of Arabian cultural domination in some cities of Spain, e.g., the Cordova Caliphate (758–1031). Halim II: Hakem II was Caliph of Cordova 961–76, its zenith. In addition to the claims to industry Coleridge attributes to him, he is said to have annotated 400,000 volumes—a point that might have caught Coleridge’s attention. The Persian (Europeans in Asia): See 4548 and n. With this entry cf CN III 3869. 4861 21½.107 Stereotypes: Coleridge is coining the application of the word here. It is derived from the method of printing from moulds of fixed forms of type, invented in 1798, and frequently referred to up to the 1820’s as a new method. Of Coleridge’s use, the earliest example in OED is 1850. 4862 21½.108 Phytic, Entomic and Zoic: Pertaining to plant, insect, and animal life; see 4553, 4617 and nn. Protonomy, Deuteronomy, Hypsonomy: The first, the second, the highest law or division. Of Coleridge’s suggestions, only entomic (1862), zoic (1863), and Deuteronomy are in OED (The OT book of Deuteronomy was given that name as containing a second formulation of the Law.) See on the three levels or dimensions, 4865, 4868 and nn. 4863 21½.110 The information appeared in Humboldt Personal Narrative (see 4864n) V 187–91, but like that of the following entry, it may have come from the review: The Rio Negro is referred to as “a class of rivers” that are “aguas negras, that is, their waters seen in a large body, appear brown like coffee, or of a greenish black; but when the least breath of wind agitates their surface, they become of a fine grassgreen….” He is unable to trace the cause of these coloured waters, but suggests that it maybe owing to a mixture of carbon and hydrogen; and he quotes the opinion of Sir Humphry Davy that the
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tints of different seas may probably be owing to different proportions of iodin. The extreme purity of the black waters of these American rivers may be inferred from their limpidity. QR (July 1821) XXV 377–8. 4864 21½.109 Alexander von Humboldt published his Voyage aux Régions equinoxiales du Nouveau Continent, fait en 1799–1804, par A. de Humboldt et A. Bonpland in 3 vols in 1814. It appeared in an English translation by Helen Maria Williams as Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions…(7 vols 1814–29), where the Cavern of Ataruipe, the cemetery of the extinct Indian tribe of the Atures, on the east bank of the Orinoco, and the mountain with the great balls of granite are described in Vol V (1821) 615–17. This volume was reviewed in No 49 QR XXV (July 1821)—published in Oct—where the facts that Coleridge seized upon appear in long quotations from Humboldt who, however, made different inferences about granite. A narrow ridge led us to a neighbouring mountain, the rounded summit of which supported immense blocks of granite. These masses are more than forty or fifty feet in diameter; and their form is so perfectly spherical, that, appearing to touch the soil only by a small number of points, it might be supposed, at the least shock of an earth-quake, they would roll into the abyss. I do not remember to have seen any where else a similar phenomenon, amid the decompositions of granitic soils. If the balls rested on a rock of a different nature, as it happens in the blocks of Jura, we might suppose, that they had been rounded by the action of water, or thrown out by the force of an elastic fluid; but their position on the summit of a hill alike granitic makes it more probable, that they owe their origin to the progressive decomposition of the rock. QR XXV 388. See also 4863n. The granite balls reported by Humboldt are not wholly unknown to current geology; see e.g. A.Rondeau “Les boules du granite”: Zeitschrift für Geomorphologie (Berlin) II (1958) 211–29 and C.D.Ollier “Causes of Spheroidal Weathering”: Earth-Science Reviews (Amsterdam NY) VII (1971) 127–41. In neither article were the granite balls perfectly round, nor can near-perfect spheres of granite be accounted for by any known geological process. There are such balls but of basalt or crystallised glassy volcanic ash. Granite spheres, e.g. in Costa Rica and Veracruz State, Mexico, prove to be man-made. Either Humboldt mistook basalt for granite or he stumbled on artifacts of a preColumbian civilization. Sir H.Davy’s Stones from Jupiter. Did Coleridge have from Davy in conversation some such theory of meteorites? There appears to be nothing in printed or MS records. Davy had, however, prepared an abstract, “Experiments on the stones said to have fallen from above. By M.Vauquelin”, for the Journal of the Royal Institution II (1803) 27, but the moon was there mentioned as a possible source, not Jupiter. W.T.Brande, in his Manual 292–3, favoured extraterrestrial origins; Coleridge discussed the passage; see 4646 f6v. In fact the subject of meteorites was a lively one in scientific and quasiscientific journals in the first decades of the century, sometimes being linked with Davy’s work on the oxides, leading to speculation whether the “aerolites” could come from a
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planet devoid of oxygen and explode on entering the earth’s atmosphere at a high velocity. One such theory was advanced e.g. in an article “On the Origin of Meteoric Stones” in Phil Mag (July-Dec 1815) XLVI 245–6. Davy’s work describing magnesia as a metallic oxide was referred to there. 4865 21½.111 The entry, along with 4859, 4862, and 4868, appears to participate in anatomical discussions or reading relative to nerves, veins, brain, etc; interest in the physiology of the brain greatly accelerated for Coleridge after 1820; see 4541, 5217 f81v, and 5240 ff27v–28. Cf J.C.Prichard, M.D. A Treatise on Diseases of the Nervous System (1822) 2–3: “…the natural and vital functions”, he said were common to all organized beings, but “when a nervous system begins to appear, a new series of properties is displayed…the properties of mind; for BY THIS TERM WE DISTINGUISH ALL THOSE PHAENOMENA WITH WHICH WE BECOME ACQUAINTED THROUGH THE MEDIUM OF CONSCIOUSNESS”. Tic Doloreux: See 5189 f92 and n. a resistance of Life by Life: Cf 5189 f92v on Resistance. On Coleridge’s notion of Life as an entity, see e.g. 4645 and 4646. ne plus ultra: “Let there be no going further!” Late Latin, alluding originally to the Pillars of Hercules. Topical bleeding: See Hoopers Medical Dictionary (1838) for an account of the contemporary practice of local blood-letting “by the application of leeches, cuppingglasses and scarification”, as distinct from a more general treatment through veins and arteries. 4866 21½.112 In AP 289–90, except the last paragraph. Race was a subject on which Coleridge read Kant, Blumenbach, Steffens, and the prevailing theories generally, sharing the anthropological ignorance of his time. It is possible he intended to write an essay on racial differences and groupings, for some folios exist in BM Add MS 34,225 on the subject (ff131–143v) or perhaps these were directed towards the Opus Maximum. See also such entries as 4548, 4668, 4984 and nn. f58 the Turks…the Porte and its Seraglio: Coleridge seems to have been fascinated by the despotic court of the Ottoman empire. At the “Sublime Porte” the Sultan gave audience at Constantinople; thus it was identified with royal power. There is a splendid illustration of it and its Seraglio in a work Coleridge had enjoyed c 1802–3, George Sandys A Relation of a Journey begun An. Dom. 1610 (1621) opposite 30; see CN I 1245 and n. the Spring: Cf CN III 3320, 3556 and nn. f58v Colonists…degenerate, by excision: Cf TT 14 Aug 1831, 4 May 1833; see also Coleridge’s remedy in Inq Sp § 267. Root (Radix, Race): See some related discussion in 4839. Diastole and Systole of Humanity. See 4541 f38v for the more usual use. Entry 4984 has some bearing here. 4867 21½.113 In “Omniana 1809–16”: LR I 346. For an almost identical statement see the letter to John Murray of 18 Jan 1822. CL V 198. Leighton’s Commentary on the I Ep. of Peter: Leighton’s Works (1819) I, II 1–354; (1820) I, II 1–381. See above 4853n.
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4868 21½.114 the doctrine of the 3 Dimensions: The context appears to be physical, even physiological. On Productivity, Irritability, Sensibility see 4541, 4862, 4865 and nn; the triple 3 refers to each of these seen in muscular, nervous, and glandular contexts. See also 4929 where the doctrine of the 3 Dimensions is elaborated schematically. Such a natural historian as Tiedemann Zoologie (3 vols 1808–14) 128 stresses the three basic characteristics of animal life, “Reproduction, Irritabilität, und Sensibilität”. Cf 4541 f41, 4862 and nn. Coleridge insisted on the detailed application of the principle of polarity to his doctrine of the 3 Dimensions. the firmamental and the fluid: OED cites Coleridge for a second use of the word firmamental, referring to his lecture On the Prometheus of Aeschylus (LR II 357 fn): “Rhea (from ) that is, the earth as the transitory, the ever-flowing nature, the flux and sum of phenomena, or objects of the outward sense, in contradistinction from the earth as Vesta, as the firmamental law that sustains and disposes the apparent world! …” See below 4910 f72 and n. On firmamental see also, above 4555 f50v, 4558 f53v and nn. 4869 21½.115 Coleridge returned here to a reading of Eichhorn; see 4603 f40v above. wretchedness of the Septuagint Version…Theodotion’s Transl. of Daniel: Cf Eichhorn AT I 324: Tr:…and Daniel, of them all, was the most wretchedly treated: for that reason the early church gave the same sanction to Theodotion’s translation of this prophet that the seventy translators were given for all the other books. Daniel was among the latest. See 4615 and n. Council of 70 in Alexandria. The True meaning of Septuagint: Again Eichhorn AT I 315. Tr: After the death of Alexander there remained an unusually large colony of Jews in Egypt, and especially in Alexandria. With their change in location they suffered no change in their love for the religion of their forebears; they were all the more zealous to maintain the exercise of it exactly as did their brother believers in Palestine …and set up here, as there were there, synagogues and a Sanhedrim of seventy or seventy-two members, exactly like the Sanhedrim of Jerusalem…. Even less knowledge of the Hebrew language [than with those in Palestine who had returned from the Babylonian Captivity] was to be expected among the Egyptian Jews, who in their everyday life used not even the Chaldean, but the Greek…. In short, they wanted a written Greek translation of the books of Moses. If this was to be done officially, undoubtedly the Sanhedrin would superintend… since it was probably composed of seventy or seventy-two members, like the one in Jerusalem, the translation was named that of the seventy or seventy-two translators. Pentateuch as the eldest…delivered to Ptol. Philadelphus and Lagi: Cf Eichhorn AT I 316: Tr: Finally, since the first consideration of their compilation concerned the synagogues, it seems apparent from the unanimous witness of ancient times, that at first only the five books of Moses were translated, and at that time only these were read in the synagogues.
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Eichhorn AT I 317 suggests that the Greek Pentateuch was delivered to the library at Alexandria when Ptolemy I Lagi and his son, Ptolemy II Philadelphus were reigning jointly; that is, 285–283 B.C. On the translations of the OT Eichhorn wrote (AT I 323–4): Tr: The translator of the five books of Moses deserves the prize over all others, for his knowledge of both lore and language is distinctive. The next place after him is due the translator of Proverbs; his work does not have the stiffness of a dictionary, for he had both languages very much at his command; often he stays with only the sense of the original, and when he does err, the genius is recognizable even in the errors. Job is translated by a man possessed of a poetic soul and versed in the Greek poets, as is clear from, e.g., his use of the form [to perish] for (Job 9:16 and 33:18 etc.) and similar poetic forms: but he was too weak in a knowledge of the Hebrew language and learning, which should be lacking least of all in an expositor and translator of Job. The Psalms and the Prophets are ruined by men without feeling for the beautiful and without poetic spirit; and among them all, Daniel is the most wretchedly done…. Reading of the Prophets in the Synagogue: Cf Eichhorn AT I 319. Tr: For only after this time [Ptolemy VI Philometor] did the Egyptian Jews introduce the prophets into their synagogues, following their fellowbelievers in Palestine who had read them aloud in their synagogues from 170 B.C. And this public use of the prophets probably first made their translation into Greek necessary. oracles: I.e. the Hebrew prophets. 4870 21½.116 f6o Esdras with exception of the 3 & 4 Chapters …and the Chronicles: Based on Eichhorn “Über den apokryphischen Esdras”: Apok 306. Tr: Indeed, a more precise comparison of this with the Hebrew Ezra has convinced me that the latter obviously stands as a foundation for the former, and that the apocryphal book, in the places where it is parallel to the canonical, can be described as nothing other than a free translation of the Hebrew Ezra we have…. The first chapter, which describes the Passover Feast of Josiah, corresponds generally to II Chron 35 and 36, and the last 19 verses of the last chapter correspond to Neh 7:73 to 8:13. Eichhorn (341–63) quotes examples of parallel wordings. 3rd & 4th unknown: Eichhorn Apok 337. used largely by Josephus: Eichhorn Apok 347–51 pointed out the use of Esdras in the Antiquities IX–XL. Aλη Θεια: See above, 4536 and n. Coleridge is discussing the passage about truth in 1 Esdras 4:34–40. Eichhorn did not discuss it. In this entry it becomes clear that Coleridge
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equated with the Latin halitus, “breath”, so that ’Aλήθεια (Truth) is here synonymous with the OT Ruach Elohim, “Breath of God”. Eichhorn NT II 169–71 enumerated OT and Apocrypha passages which speak of the “Breath of God” as creating man, inspiring the prophets, and being the spirit of creative wisdom in the world. Eichhorn Apok 189 pointed out that the Jews later used λογος to mean “wisdom personified”; see Coleridge’s objection below f60v. a Christian Interpreter would have rendered LOGOS: John 1:1–14. Coleridge adopted the usual Christian distinction between the Logos (Christ) as the actualizing Alterity of God and the Pneuma Hagion (Holy Spirit), operative on earth, a distinction not so sharply defined in Judaic thought, or in early Christian thought, Eichhorn NT II 170–71; see also 5249 f34 and n. Outerance: OED outrance, outtrance, utterance; cf “outering” in 4954 f109 and n. Sophia: “Wisdom”; Coleridge often pointed out that this was a patristic term for the Holy Ghost, e.g. in CN II 2445 and in a MS note on SM:LS (CC) 67n. In 5339 below and a marginal note on Eichhorn Apok 87–9, he identified the Santa Sophia of the Greek church with the Holy Ghost; see 5339 f36v. Cf the Böhme ref in CN III 3263 and n. κτισιν η πανγενεσον: “creation or genesis of all things” alluding to I Es 4:35; the Greek is Coleridge’s and πανγενεσιν appears to be his coinage. In Judaic thought, especially in the Apocrypha, the attribution of the Creation to Wisdom is common, as illustrated by Eichhorn NT II 170. Spirit=7 Spirits of God rest in plenitude on the Messiah: Rev 1:4 and 5:6; Eichhorn ABbL III 216–25 traced the Judaic and Cabalistic identification of the Seven Spirits with the Messiah. For Coleridge’s reading of this work see 4625, above and n. Coleridge may also have had in mind Eichhorn NT II 171n where this Cabalistic tradition was placed earlier than the time of Christ, as Coleridge in Lect 10 P Lects (CC) f448 placed the Cabala. Cf Eichhorn ABbL III 218: Tr: And according to the teaching of John in his gospel have not father and son a πνευµα (spirit) in common with one another (John 16:13)? If therefore the Evangelist is the Apostle John and also the author of the Apocalypse, he must include the seven spirits of God in the Son, or else he does not agree here with his gospel. f60v “I am the truth”; John 14:6. Koran…declares Christ to have been Ruach Jehovah: e.g. Surah IV: 171, “Verily, Christ Jesus, the son of Mary, is the apostle of God, and his word, which he conveyed unto Mary, and a spirit proceeding from him….” quoted in Gibbon Decline and Fall (1802) IX 265; see CN III 3814n. A copy of the Koran tr George Sale (2 vols 1812) appeared in Green SC. See 5299 and n. not a personification: I.e. “truth” in I Es 4:34–40; Coleridge is arguing with Eichhorn (Apok 189); see above. Amoibaian Eclogue: “alternately answering dialogue”; see The Friend (CC) I 417 n2. υ.35…37.40: I.e. I Es 4:35–37, 40. Coleridge compares this with John’s Epistle because in the Johanine literature is often identified with the Christ or the Holy Spirit.
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the only philosophy adopted, or rather adapted by the Jews: I.e. the Platonic philosophy in which the Good and the True are not mere personifications but “pure reality”. Eichhorn Apok 22 held that the Jews adopted Chaldaic and Greek philosophy in the five centuries before Christ, and developed a higher religion from a lower; in a marginal note on this page Coleridge objected that the Jews were then a degenerating race. He held that in the poetry of their former periods they saw the Ruach Hakodesh as the Jehovah-man 4854 f51v and n). Prudentius Psychomachia: See CN II 3203 and n. 4871 21½.117 Eichhorn Apok 296 commented on the story of Judith: (tr) “From beginning to end this account lacks probability and historical accuracy. In it the conditions of the Jews before and after the Exile, the rule of the Assyrians and the Persians, separated by centuries, history and chronology are all jumbled together, and the assumptions about the world are completely incredible”. He then pointed out the discrepancies in the dating of the relief of Bethulia from Holofernes. He cited other historical errors, such as the attribution of rulership to a High Priest when Israel was ruled by kings, concluding (303): (tr) “Finally, as a memorial of the relief of Bethulia, the Jews were annually supposed to celebrate a feast (Judith 16:31), and no ancient writer knows a thing about this religious institution”. received even as canonical by only not all the fathers: Eichhorn Apok 331–3 said that the first use of Judith as canonical came in Clement of Rome, and from then on it was so cited by Origen, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Ambrose, Jerome, and others. trans-personed: A nonce-word. 4872 21½.118 The Mosaic thronghout a Stete-dispensation: On the Mosaic code as dictated largely by political considerations, see e.g. 4562, 5269 and nn. schism of the 10 tribes: I.e. the splitting of Israel into the northern ten tribes and the southern two (Judah and Benjamin) in 938 B.C., after the death of Solomon. 1 Kings 12:20–4. represented by the Prophets as individual Persons: E.g. Isa 44:1–2; 48:12; 49:17–22; 51:20; Jer 2:14; 49:1; Ezek 16:1–63. Jonas…an Instance: Cf Eichhorn AT III 259–60, “Jonas”: Tr: Israel, as teacher of the heathen, could not be more conveniently represented than in the person of a prophet. The writer chose the name of an ancient prophet, Jonah, the son of Amitai, for the simple reason, perhaps, that aside from the name, nothing was known of him, and he could therefore be given any character deemed appropriate. Paul, a Hebrew. Acts 22:1–3. Christ as the Head and Church as his Members—his Body: E.g. Rom 12:4–5. Miracles as contra-distinguished from Pr[ovidence]: See CN III 3278n; and below 4985 and n. my view of the Plagues of Egypt: I.e. that the account in Ex 7 and 8 was a later misunderstanding which turned hieroglyphic predictions and talismans into historical events. In a note on Webster The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft (see 4611n) 84–5 Coleridge wrote:
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…I should extend a similar interpretation to the Egyptian Magi—I am at least strongly inclined to believe that the account in the first documents, was written or insculpt in hieroglyphic symbols, and referred to Predictions chiefly—so that we may throughout render the words—& this the Priests had likewise predicted in their Almanachs, or meteoro- and astro-logical Reports to the Government. See also a marginal note on Hillhouse Hadad in CM (CC) II. 4873 21½.119 The entry appears to be undatable; beginning at the top of a page, it could have been written in the notebook at any time. On the Schmen is graphically clear but of uncertain meaning, which might be elucidated if we had Coleridge’s Marginal Note; unfortunately his copy of Thomas Thomson A System of Chemistry (3rd ed 5 vols Edinburgh 1807) has disappeared. Possibly Coleridge’s note referred to the Sch[ool]men and Thomson’s description, in his historical introduction, of the early alchemical chemists, such as Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, Raymond Lull, and others. See Lect 9 P Lects (CC) ff412–414 and n 43. Thomson’s 3rd edition contained the first account of Dalton’s atomic theory. (Gillman SC shows only a copy of the 2nd ed 4 vols Edinburgh 1804.) p. 388. Third Edition is the first page of Thomson’s chapter “Of Light”. Coleridge was here objecting to Thomson’s assumption of the materiality of light (1807) I 389: It was first demonstrated by Roemer, a Danish philosopher, that light takes about eight minutes in moving across one half of the earth’s orbit; consequently it moves at the rate of nearly 200,000 miles in a second. The discovery of Roemer has been still farther confirmed and elucidated by Dr Bradley’s very ingenious theory of the aberration of the light of the fixed stars…. 2. From this astonishing velocity we are enabled to form such notion of the size of the particles of light. On the previous page Thomson discussed an early form of the undulatory theory, developed or revived by Thomas Young who, presenting himself as a Newtonian, argued for an undulatory theory and the rectilinear propagation of light to which Coleridge refers. a just contemplation of Color: Thomson (401–2) discussed briefly the colourific and calorific aspects of light; see also 5290, and 5446. Rings & c from pressure of Glass Plates: Thomson referred to glass plates and to Newton on the phenomena of light passing through a medium, but not in terms close to Newton’s Opticks which Coleridge annotated in the edition (among others?) of 1721 (Green SC). See Lect 3 P Lects (CC) f58 and n 4. See also 4855 and n. 4874 29.93 importation of Pictures…: Coleridge and Green clearly thought that expenditure on works of art was investment of the national wealth, as against those who decried it at a time of a very large National Debt. See 5056 below and n. Coleridge seems to have considered this a sufficiently novel view to make a note of it.
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4875 29.94 In “Omniana 1809–16”: LR 1 343 var, reading “In Roman Catholic states”. The plus and minus signs, i.e. more Roman, less Catholic, distinct in the MS, were omitted in LR. Coleridge often attacked Roman Catholicism for being more Roman than Catholic. Cf 4821 and n and 5126. 4876 29.95 Misattributing: Apparently C’s coinage. 4877 29.96 In 1820 Coleridge read an article in a German Encyclopaedia Vol I where he read also the article on the Abendmahl (see 5172n), on the “Abiponenses” (CL V 96) almost certainly J.J.Ersch’s Allgemeine Encyclopädie. Probably he had learned that Derwent and Sara were translating from the Latin An Account of the Abipones of Martin Dobrizhoffer. Derwent dropped out, but Sara completed the three volumes for publication 9 Mar 1822. The relevant passages appear to be in Vol II Chap 21 on the belief in immortality and Vol II Chap 8, not in the 2 first Chapters of Vol. II. as Coleridge says. Chap 21 “Of the Diseases, Physicians and Medicines of the Abipones”: In a word, [the] greatest part of the Abipones die when they are satiated with life, when, weary of the burden of fears, they long for death as the rest and solace of their miserable existence. Thus circumstance occasions the common error that they should never die at all were the Spaniards and the jugglers banished from America; for, to the arms of the former, and to the arts of the latter, they attribute the deaths of all their countrymen. A wound inflicted with a spear often gapes so wide that it affords ample room for life to go out and death to come in; yet if the man dies of the wound, they madly believe him killed, not by a weapon, but by the deadly arts of the jugglers…. The jugglers are commonly thought to be the authors of dis-eases, as well as of death, and the sick Abipones imagine that they shall recover as soon as ever those persons are removed…. The sick man immediately devotes the accused to death, for the preservation, as he thought, of his own life…. [One who was baptized and dying] caused us to entertain great hopes of his obtaining a happy immortality on many accounts. For, indifferent at the lamentations of his weeping domestics, he said they should remember he was going to visit the great house of the Creator of all things, the high father, the greatest captain. II 222–31. There is no reference in the chapter to the absence of the Idea of God. That appears in Chap 8 “Of the Religion of the Abipones”: …what was my astonishment, when on removing…to a colony of Abipones, I found that the whole language of these savages does not contain a single word which expresses God or a divinity. To instruct them in religion, it was necessary to borrow the Spanish word for God…. Lo! this is the proof of their insanity! They are unacquainted with God, and with the very name of God, yet affectionately salute the evil spirit…with the title of grandfather… II 57–64.
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This in relation to the Mosaic Mission: See 4562, 4708, 4794 f35 and nn. 4878 29.250 This entry of 23 Mar 1822 was on the page when with 5130 (f102) Coleridge encountered it. In fact the flower was held in place with a strip of paper glued close to the gutter, so that he did not notice it in counting the blanks. See 5110 f113. He drew a shaky pencil line around the piece of paper holding the flower, and c Feb 1824, wrote outside it. The Milne family: When Coleridge first went to the Gillmans, Mr & Mrs James Milne (Margaret Bullock) and her sister Elizabeth (called Betsy) Bullock, in Southwood near the top of the road now called Highgate West Hill, were close neighbours to the Gillmans, who then lived in Moreton House in South Grove. In 1822 the Milnes went down West Hill to 9 Holly Terrace, and in Dec 1823 the Gillmans and Coleridge removed to 3 The Grove; the families remained within a few minutes’ walk from each other, though with the steep hill between them. Entry 4606 records a birthday bouquet from Miss Bullock to Coleridge. 4879 23.35 Here begins a series of running comments on data from the first two volumes of William Kirby and William Spence An Introduction to Entomology (4 vols 1815, 1817, 1826), with Coleridge’s usual condensations and alterations, as he halfcopied, half-remembered, what he had been reading, often improving upon this delightful work full of the sense of the beauty of insects. He recommended it in AR 210; see, however, a reservation in 4888 below. In Op Max (MS) he referred to the last chapter in Vol II saying, “tho I differ widely from the amiable and intelligent Authors’ conclusions, I strongly recommend [the work] to the Reader’s careful perusal”. MS Vol II f186. He mentioned it also in the Logic (CC) 74–5. Coleridge’s notes appear to have been made only on the first two volumes, before Vols III and IV were published (1826). A glance at the page numbers of his references in this group of entries (4879–4896), all of which seem to belong to early April 1822, throws interesting light on Coleridge’s process of reading, the pages in sequence being constantly interrupted by his return to elements from earlier pages; e.g. 4882 refers to K&S I 417 and then to I 328. This entry is based on I 288–91. In Coleridge’s par 2, K&S (I 288), e.g., read “beautiful tribe of Iris” for Coleridge’s shewy Iris tribe, and for their “style-flag…often improperly regarded…” he wrote often but erroneously regarded…. arcus eminens of Haller: “a transverse membrane…which is sketched across the middle of the under surface of the petal-like expansion or style flag…” referred to by K&S I 288. Sprengel conjectures: Ibid I 289, referring to Christian Conrad Sprengel (Berlin 1793). Coleridge pluralizes the “Saftmaal” of K&S. f33v With this and f34, except for the sweet simile in parenthesis from K&S (I 288–9), cf on the movements of bees, 5220. In par 3 the substance, including the mouse-trap, is condensed sharply from K&S I (189–90), but for Coleridge’s last clause (and little Penit gets his jail-delivery), K&S has “these little go-betweens of Flora at length leave their prison”. Par 4 down to the parenthesis is slightly condensed from K&S (1 290). 4880 23.36 Taken largely from K&S I 329–3, including the reference to Franciscus Redi De Insectis (Amsterdam 1685, 1686). The word υegetiυorous anticipating the first use cited in OED (1859) is Coleridge’s, also the suggestion Destruction simply and the
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three last sentences, from Remotion of the Destructed, Remotion and destruct (verb) are said to be rare and obsolete (OED), though remotion (for “removal”) is referred by OED to Chap VII BL (CC) I 117, also to Thomas Browne; destruct has one reference dated 1638. Zoic: See 4553, 4617, 4862 above and 4886 below and nn; disanimate (as an adjective) is described as “obs. rare” in OED, though inter alios Thomas Browne used it as a verb. The difficulty of word-formation from is that it means “life” in general, animal life in particular, and also the Light that was the Life of man (John 1:4). Coleridge was trying to distinguish fine gradations of life. The footnote giving an example of disanimate Zöic was written as an afterthought after 4881 and 4882 had been written on the same page. ammoniacal Gases or malaria: Malaria was early associated with swampy regions and “bad air”; its parasitic nature was not discovered until the late nineteenth century. Of azöic the first OED example is dated 1854. A Coleridge coinage. 4881 23.37 K&S I 400 condensed. 4882 23.38 In AP 271. The first sentence is υar from K&S I 417. The Arindy or Palma Christi Silkworm: K&S 1 328 describes “the Arindy silk-worm (Phal. Cynthia, Drury), which feeds solely on the leaves of the Palma Christi…and the thread…is woven into a coarse kind of white cloth of a loose texture, but of still more incredible durability than the last [the Tusseh silk-worms], the life of one person being seldom sufficient to wear out a garment made of it. It is used not only for clothing, but for packing fine cloths, &c”. 4883 23.39 K&S I 420 condensed, with the addition of the “hole or hold? at the end. K&S reads: “The booty thus seized it devours at leisure upon its raft, under which it retires when alarmed by any danger.” Coleridge is quick to add and invent the pun on hold. 4884 23.40 f35v My Scheme of the Insect=Instinctive=Irritability…: See below 4894. Is this scheme the raison d’être for the reading of K&S in this group of entries? See above 4879n. Also 4719. N.b. not to forget Huber. K&S tells the story (I 374–5); Coleridge is terser, and substitutes pedæuυre for “manoeuvre”. He reported this experiment in AR 212. f36 pedæuυre: From AR 212 assigned by OED to Coleridge as a nonceword. See also CM I Butler, C.Vindication I n I. Understanding only means to an end: This paragraph is provoked by the argument that Huber’s experiment proves that the bees have more than “blind instinct”. “If in this instance these little animals were not guided by a process of reasoning, what is the distinction between reason and instinct? How could the most profound architect have better adapted the means to the end…?” I 375. As Sense to Reason: Cf 4947. Storgè: See CN III 3765, and above, 4770 and nn. Here Coleridge was thinking of it as love without lust? Interpenetrancy: Not in OED, where “interpenetratively”, the adverb, is attributed to Coleridge. His alteration from synthesis is of interest, and the word opake, both implying as they seem to do, a degree of impenetrability, of something less than conscious; see below 4888.
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Self-finding=Empfindung: See esp CN in 3605 and n and cross-reference there, CL VI 598–9 (a letter of 27 July 1826) and C&S (CC) 180. The German and Latin phrases mean “the feeling of longing”. The distinction between love and lust is basic Coleridge; see e.g. CN III 3293 f17, 3746 and nn. Virgo Mater in Metaphysics…: The “Virgin Mother” in Metaphysics. “Mother of the divine-made-human Word”. 4885 23.41 pothos or desiderium: See the previous entry and n; also CN III 4335 and n. 4886 23.42 Coleridge quoted François Huber’s work on bees (see above 4833 and n), yet here he was probably basing his remarks about the cause of the anger of worker Bees against the Drones in K&S II 173–5 (which for this subject relied on Huber); he was also taking a glance backward (f36v) at the Spinner-teats of the spider described in K&S 1 399 as “four little teat-like protuberances or spinners” in the “hinder part of the abdomen”. The suggestion that the anger against the drones is aroused by a stoppage of the Actions (i.e. coition?) should be read in the light of CN I 1833: “Interruption of itself is painful.” As this entry continues one sees that the interest in Anger & Lust is not merely entomological; it extends to higher animals. See on anger and lust CN I 979 and n; and “Restraint” 241. Without exaggerating the subjective elements here, it is indubitable that Coleridge had long been analytical of frustration in human beings. Animus Substans: For this play on the primary meaning of substance see 4679 and n. the vague terms Reproduction, Irritability and Sensibility: See 4541, 5168 and nn. For these he substituted (see 4929 f29v) τo εντοµειδες: “insect-like”; “plantlike”; “pertaining to life in the proper sense”. These all appear to be Coleridge’s coinages. See 4862, 5168 and nn. On words compounded with ειδες see 4929 f30v n. The words idiozoic and zoic are very nearly synonymous, but from f22 it is evident that by life Coleridge meant Animal Life (Life proper: for the term is misapplied i.e. misappropriated to Vegetables. Yet in 4880 he used zoic for minimal or marginal animal life (chemi-zoic or disanimate zoic) and hence needed the new idiozoic for “life” in the stricter sense of animal life. See its use in 4929 f20v and 5168. a first Thought in its semi-fluid or matter-of-light state: Like genesis out of chaos; cf CN III 4418 ff12–14v. 4887 23.43 Reflexions set in motion by K&S (II Letter XVII) on “Perfect Societies of Insects”, esp II 34–6 where the extraordinary pregnancy of the Mother termite is vividly described, her huge abdomen “enlarged to 1500 or 2000 times the size of the rest of her body” is “a vast matrix of eggs…remarkable for its peristaltic motion, (in this resembling the female ant), which, like the undulations of water, produces a perpetual and successive rise and fall over the whole surface of the abdomen, and occasions a constant extrusion of the eggs, amounting sometimes in old females to sixty a minute, or eighty thousand and upwards in twenty-four hours. As these females live two years in their perfect state, how astonishing must be the number produced in that time!” The whole account is written with a fascinated excitement which Coleridge reads analogically, transferring the process to metaphysics. See on metaphysical thinking 4692 and n. f37v the predominance of the Zoo-electrical over the Zoo-magnetic: See 4896 below. incessancy is Coleridge’s swift condensacion of a long story. Ibid II 35–7. Passion, Appetite, Affection: Cf the concern about Appetite in 4848; cf 4862.
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auseinandersetzung: For Coleridge a favourite German compression for “a setting forth distinguishing one from the other”; see also 4577, 5086. In 5115 f112 he found a translation in unfold. Unicuique-suum-appertiency. “To-each-its-own-allocation”. The phrase, and the word appertiency, are impeccably coined, the latter from appertio, which also is coined, from ad-partio, “I share”, “I distribute”. Appertiency is not in OED. 4888 23.44 Kirby and Spence, Vol. II. p. 187: Continuing the chapter on “Perfect Societies of Insects”. my conjecture of the nature of Bee-Anger: Above in 4886. f38 Kirby Vol. II. p. 198–199–et passim: In these pages, K&S criticised Huber for arguing that in the social activity of bees “the sole determining motive is the enjoyment of an agreeable sensation attached to these operations” (as at II 215). Although K&S used the language of sensation applied to bees, suggesting responses to shade and sun, odours, temperatures, and using such phrases as “Bees are extremely neat” (II 199), “bees can remember agreeable sensations” (II 202), bees are “irritable”, “eager”, etc., it seems to qualify the assumption by adding, Surely it would be better to resolve all their proceedings at once into a direct impulse from the Creator, than to maintain a theory so contrary to fact; and which militates against the whole history which M.Huber, who adopts this theory from Bonnet, has so ably given of these creatures. That they may experience agreeable sensations from their various employments, nobody will deny; but that such sensations instruct them how to perform their several operations, without any plan previously impressed upon their sensorium, is contrary both to reason and experience. They have a plan, it is evident; and that plan, which proves that it is not mere sensation, they vary according to circumstances. As to affection—that bees are irritable, and feel the passion of anger, no one will deny; that they are also susceptible of fear, is equally evident; and if they feel anger and fear, why may they not also feel love? Further, if they have recourse to precautions for the prevention of any evil that seems to threaten them, how can we refuse them a degree of foresight? Must we also resolve all their patriotism, and the singular regard for the welfare of their community, which seems constantly to actuate them, and the sacrifices, even sometimes of themselves, that they make to promote and ensure it, into individual self-love? We would not set them up as rivals to man in intelligence, foresight, and the affections; but they have that degree of each that is necessary for their purposes. On account of the difficulties attending all theories that give them some degree of these qualities, to resolve all into mere sensation, is removing one difficulty by a greater. II 215–16. It is of some interest that Coleridge did not accept the teleological argument, at least in this form. See also 4890 below and Chap VII BL. passion and sensibility: Cf 4862.
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4889 23.45 AP 273 var. Cf Robert Leighton Meditations Critical and Practical on Psalm IV: Works (1819) IV 354, (1820) II 400; (1748) II 405: “As Bernard excellently speaks, ‘Nothing, Lord, that is Thine can suffice me without Thyself, nor can any thing that is mine without myself be pleasing to Thee.’ “The Latin as Coleridge has it is given (without specific reference) in a footnote. On Coleridge’s use of various editions of Leighton’s Works see 4853n. 4890 23.46 See 4888 above. f38v Durham: For Coleridge’s reading of William Derham see CN I and II index I under Derham, a name he habitually mis-spelled. K&S refers to his Physico-Theology. Neuwentiet: I.e. Bernard Nieuwentijt (1654–1718), whose massive work in defence of teleological proofs of the existence of God was translated by John Chamberlayne: The Religious Philosopher, or the Right use of contemplating the Works of the Creator. (I) In the Wonderful Structure of their Animal Bodies; (II) In the Formation of the Elements; (III) In the Structure of the Heavens, Designed for the Conviction of Atheists (3 vols 1718). K&S does not refer to him. Lyonnet: F.C.Lesser Théologie des Insectes tr P.Lyonnet; see CN II 2330, III 4448 and nn. This and other works of Lyonnet are quoted frequently by K&S.Lyonnet’s speciality was the anatomy of insects. f39 Kirby & Spence II. 223…: Another tribe of these little animals, before alluded to, is secured from harm by a different kind of imitation, and affords a beautiful instance of the wisdom of Providence in adapting means to their end. Some singular larvae, with a radiated anus, live in the nests of humble-bees, and are the offspring of a particular genus of flies, (Volucella, Geoffr., Pterocera, Meigen), many of the species of which strikingly resemble those bees in shape, clothing, and colour. Thus has the Author of nature provided that they may enter these nests and deposit their eggs undiscovered. Did these intruders venture themselves amongst the humble-bees in a less kindred form, their lives would probably pay the forefeit of their presumption. Mr. Sheppard once found one of these larvae in the nest of Aphis Raiella, K., but we could not ascertain what the fly was. Perhaps it might be Pterocera bombylans, Meig., which resembles those humble-bees that have a red anus. The brilliant colours in which many insects are arrayed, may decorate them with some other view than that of mere ornament. They may dazzle their enemies. II 223–4.
The frightful aspect of certain insects is another passive mean of defence by which they sometimes strike beholders, especially children, often great insect tormentors, with alarm, and so escape. The terrific and protended jaws of the stag-beetle (Lucanus Ceruus, L.) in Europe, and of the staghorn capricorn-beetle (Prionus cervicornis, F.) in America, may save them
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from the cruel fate of the poor cockchafer, whose gyrations and motions, when transfixed by a pin, too often form the amusement of ill-disciplined children…. What is the precise use of all the varieties of armour with which these little creatures are furnished it is not easy to say, but they may probably defend them from the attack of some enemies. II 224–5. One instance…in Paley’s Nat. Th.: In Chap XIII of Natural Theology, or the Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, collected from the Appearances of Nature (1802) “Peculiar Organizations”, Paley used “the fang of a viper”, “a clear and curious example of mechanical con-trivance” (264) as part of his general argument from design. Paley did not (in the edition used) give Coleridge’s figures for the proportion of venomous to harmless serpents. f39v conspicuity: “now rare”. OED. Demonstrations of the Supreme Being a posteriori: See 4786, 5110, 5114, 5128, 5129 and nn. the higher Physiology…: See 4784 f128-f127v and n. The Bones of the Human Ear furnish a remarkable Instance: Coleridge did not write enough on the anatomy of the ear to make clear what he meant here. 4891 23.47 Coleridge’s exclamatory entry arises from the use of “prolegs (propedes)” by K&S (II 288–9) for the temporary legs of some larvae, which disappear on maturity. They are attached behind the six true legs. Coleridge’s blunder in calling them Forelegs as he saw at once, arose from the ambiguity of the prefix pro; in a Greek compound it would mean “fore”, in a Latin one, “instead of” i.e. Vice or Lieutenant de. The hybrid word reminded Coleridge of a Graeco-Latin parallel, “hyper-acute” perpetrated by Robert Gooch in his Treatise on the Hydrocephalus Acutus (1821), a work Gooch translated from the German of L.A. Golis. Golis/Gooch described “dropsy of the head” as of three sorts, “hyper-acute”, “acute”, and “chronic” (p 4 and passim). Either Coleridge had seen the book or he was raising an objection to Gooch’s phrase in conversation with him or with medical friends. He knew Gooch, and in Aug 1812 had called him in to see “the alarming symptom of a swoln Leg, Ancle, and Foot” (CL III 414) and discussed with him his problem of addiction to opium. Cf Coleridge’s joke about hysteron proteron and pre-posterous in CN III 3421 and n. 4892 23.48 In AP 271. K&S (II 355–6) on the flight of dragon flies, much condensed. 4893 23.49 K&S II 334–46, in discussing gossamer webs, refers to R[obert] Hooke’s conjecture: …“Much resembling a cobweb,” says he, “or a confused lock of these cylinders, is a certain white substance which, after a fogg, may be observed to fly up and down the air: catching several of these, and examining them with my microscope, I found them to be much of the same form, looking most like to a flake of worsted prepared to be spun; though by what means they should be generated or produced is not easily imagined: they were of the same weight, or very little heavier than the air; and ’tis not unlikely, but that those great white clouds, that appear all the summertime, may be of the same substance.” So liable are even the wisest
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men to error when, leaving fact and experiment, they follow the guidance of fancy. II 334–5. mement[o] those brilliant Purissimœ: “remember” those brilliant “most pure”. every summer afternoon…at Rome: Coleridge did not spend a summer in Rome; perhaps he returned after he left it in May 1806 some time before he left Italy 18 June, and perhaps May in Rome felt like summer to an Englishman. Or Leghorn in June? Or was he thinking of Catania late in the summer of 1805? Gossamer…The amiable Historian of Selborne: See Inq Sp §189 for a marginal note by Coleridge on God’s Dame’s Hair in Gilbert White’s Natural History of Selborne Letter XXII (1802) I 326, where Coleridge offers a facetious etymology, “in monkish Latin (where I found it) called Fila Mariae Capillo Matris Dei—/Thus Gossip i.e. God’s Sib.” Here he spins more gossamer of his own making, with a reference to a cymar, or simar/symar, a light, loose robe or undergarment for Women, but sometimes part of ecclesiastical wear. K&S does not denounce, nor does Gilbert White confirm, this playful fancy. der fligende Sommer: “In Germany these flights of gossamer appear so constantly in autumn, that they are there metaphorically called ‘Der fliegender [sic] Sommer’ (the flying or departing summer)” K&S II 340–1. Bellerophon: The name of the son of Glaucus, who rode Pegasus and conquered the Amazons, was given to “H.M.S.Bellerophon”, which became affectionately known to English sailors as “Billy Ruffian”. It carried Napoleon to England after his surrender in 1815, a link that may well have added to Coleridge’s earlier enjoyment of the vulgar corruption; see CN II 2889. 4894 23.50 Coleridge was differing here somewhat from K&S in discussing the motion of insects (II 362–3). Cf: It seems to me, that it is not by muscular strength alone that many insects are enabled to keep so long upon the wing. Every one who attends to them must have noticed that the velocity and duration of their flights depend much upon the heat or coolness of the atmosphere; especially the appearance of the sun…. As these animals have no circulating fluid except the air in their tracheae and bronchiae, their locomotive powers, with few exceptions, must depend altogether upon the state of that element. When the thermometer descends below a certain point they become torpid, and when it reaches a certain height they revive; so that the air must be regarded, in some sense, as their blood, or rather the caloric that it contains; which when conveyed by the air, it circulates quickly in them, invigorates all their motions, enters into the muscles and nervures of their wings, maintaining their tension, and by the greater or less rapidity of its pulsations accelerating or diminishing their action. Instinctivity/Insectivity: emphasizing his point in 4884 above; see also 5168 on the word instinctivity. As Coleridge himself translated it, “Insectivity”.
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f41 Vis Irritabilitatis: “Power of Irritability”. On all this, cf 4541, 5171, 5168, to select but a few references to the subject. naturiency: Not in OED. Meaning possibly, “the unique nature”, or “the specific character”? Respiration: Many entries deal with this subject; see e.g. 4854 f52v, 5145. With the categories here, cf 4884, 4886. 4895 23.51 f41 AP 271 has the first sentence, Coleridge’s own observation called to mind by reading K&S on the Tipulidae (II 360–74), where they are referred to as “dancing”, and steering between drops bigger than themselves. f4Iv Ephemeræ…θεωρουντες θεωρηµατα πραττονσι: “observers give shape to their observations”. The phrase (var) is from Plotinus Ennead III viii 4; Coleridge quoted it and applied it to Nature in Chap XII BL (CC) I 251–2: “with me the act of contemplation makes the thing contemplated”. This and a quotation from Réaumur (see below) were also used in the Logic (CC) 74, where the Plotinus passage is clearer: “Her [Nature’s] contemplative act is creative, and is one with the product of the contemplation.” Intuitus (Anschauung reine) “Intuition (pure insight)”. γεννηµα: “product”. Kirby & Spence Vol. II. p. 370: Almost verbatim to the end of this paragraph. Coleridge’s insertions indicate that in this instance, transcribing carefully, he re-read and corrected. The parenthetical an optical deception is his own. of the Angles of the Angles: The repetition appears to be a slip. Reaumur: R.A.F.Réaumur (1683–1757) is frequently mentioned in K&S; the account of the “gyrations of the Ephemerae” is quoted from him. f42 his Mother a Semele or Mrs Amphyctyon: I.e. his mother was either an unmarried girl, like Semele when she became pregnant by Zeus, or a married woman, like Alcmene when Zeus took the place of her husband, Amphitryon. In either case the father was not a Frenchman (Réaumur) but a god. Coleridge’s odd Amphyctyon may be a slip associated with his interest in another case of mixed ancestry, Plato’s, whose mother was Amphictione. See 5240 f29, 5075 f29v and nn. Insects garrulous Mutes: The reconciliation of opposites at this point in K&S pleased Coleridge; a contradiction in the sentence clearly did not, and he amended it. K&S reads (II 375): “in this respect they [insects] are all perfectly mute; and though incessantly noisy, are everlastingly silent.” It will be noted also that garrulous is Coleridge’s addition, in the interests of precision. 4896 23.52 See above 4884, 4894. Letter xxv in K&S is “On Luminous Insects”, but the speculative classifications here are Coleridge’s. See also 4894, 4910, 5168 and nn; various statements about these classifications appear in numerous entries. luminous Marigolds: See PW I 99; Coleridge’s fn to Lines written at Shurton Bars appeared in Poems (1796) 186–8; (1797) 93–5. It was dropped by Coleridge from all later editions, having been copied from Erasmus Darwin’s lively note among his “Additional Notes” to The Botanic Garden Pt II Loves of the Plants Canto IV lines 43–54 (1794–5) 184–5; see CN I Index I under Darwin, E. The lines of the poem refer to fireflies and luminous insects, their “electric lustre”, with hints in the original note of electricity at work. The appended Additional Note records more vividly the experience of marigolds of a Mr Haggren, who saw a flash of light “repeatedly dart from a Marigold”.
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Was Coleridge reminded of this by his reading G.R.Treviranus Biologie (6 vols Göttingen 1818)V 82–4, who discussed luminous plants as relatively scarce, referring to Calendula officinalis and other garden plants and also quoting the Swedish naturalist, Haggren, who saw luminosity only in flowers of a golden colour? See below 5341 and n. 4897 23.53 the first eleven Chapters of Exodus: I.e. the story of Israel in Egypt up to the instituting of the Passover. a distinct Book…his Legislatorship: Coleridge may have had this idea from Eichhorn AT II 347–8, who referred to the story of the boyhood of Moses as a Familienchronik which, because of Moses’ later fame, found its way into the annals of the nation. Eichhorn did not identify this with the first eleven chapters, and Coleridge in a marginal note on 358–9 complained that Eichhorn “purposely slurred over the first 14 chapters …prudentiæ causa”. analogous to the Gospels of the Infancy: In many entries and elsewhere Coleridge referred to his view of the spuriousness of the birth stories prefixed to Matthew and Luke; see 5240 f28v and n. Umarbeitung: “re-ordering/reworking”. the biography of Daniel: See 5287 and n. Rhapsodi: The reciters of Greek epics, probably by derivation meaning “stitchers together of poems”; an indication of Coleridge’s opinion on the Homeric authorship. Homereuomenoi: See 4832 f61 and n: “singing together in company”. the Book of Jasher: Josh 10:13 and 2 Sam 1:18. Eichhorn AT II 404 translated the Hebrew saipher jasher as Buch der Lieder, or “Book of Songs”. See below 5075 f30 and n. rudely organized into…Judges: Eichhorn did not go so far. He maintained (II 425–41) that the book is made up of both songs and chronicles collected to celebrate heroes who saved Israel, and is a mixture of earlier and later materials. Lycurgus: The famous Spartan lawgiver, and Pisistratus, tyrant of Athens 560–527 B.C., who, like Solon (4637n), were both credited with the collection and preservation of the Homeric texts. Samuel & David: I.e. as possible preservers of the Hebrew poetic texts. Pentateuch of the Two Tribes: I.e. the Pentateuch of the Southern Kingdom, later the Massoretic or Hebrew text, as distinguished from the Pentateuch of the Northern Kingdom, later called the Samaritan Pentateuch. In the transmission of the two traditions discrepancies occurred. f43 Their Book of Joshua was different from the Joshua of Judæa: On Eichhorn AT II 408–9, Coleridge made an annotation parallel to this entry, pointed out that Joshua could not have been written before the division of Israel, as the book refers to the mountains of the two kingdoms, Judah and Israel, and that if it had been written earlier, it would have been found in the same form among the Samaritans. Eichhorn argued (II 414–6) that the Samaritans would not have had a book from their bitter enemies, the Kingdom of Judah. “illiterate”. Coleridge met Eichhorn’s argument by questioning whether JewishSamaritan hatred had not been dated too early. In Coleridge’s opinion the Jews owed the preservation of many of their religious writings to the Christian use of the OT; see 4769. 4898 23.54 These words, the last sentence of Arnobius Adversus gentes Bk V Chap 27, are first paraphrased and then quoted in the Cha-racteristick der alten Mysterien 131–
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2; see below in 4899 and n. After referring to Arnobius’s account of how by the improper behaviour of Baubo Ceres was made to laugh and forget her sorrows, the anonymous author paraphrases in German: Tr: “How many kinds of things could we not have brought forward to laugh and to jeer at, were we not held back by two motives: first that these matters are considered to be parts of religion by the people (whom one should not mock for this but rather deplore and teach something better) and secondly by the authority, (or example) of Holy Writ (which indeed does not mock but directly and earnestly sets forth the absurdity of paganism and superstition).” This passage has not always been thus understood, and for that reason we find it necessary to set forth the words of the original… Typically, without recording its secondary source from the same work as the next entry, Coleridge jotted down the doubtful text of the Arnobius passage in the original Latin which could be translated: How many and what kinds of things could we have brought forward to mock and to jeer at, were it not that respect for the pagans and the dignity of literature forbade this. Coleridge’s translation of gentis as common people and Literarum as sacred Scriptures rather than “Literature”, shows his agreement with the author of the Characteristick. 4899 23.55 See 4898 and n. Of this scarce, anonymous The Nature of the Ancient Mysteries for the Learned and the Unlearned, Freemasons and Others from the original authors, the title-page is as Coleridge has it except for Characteristick, Freymäurer and Original-Schriftstellern. In his preface the author declared his intention to combat those who see the Mystery religions not only as the source of the teachings of Moses but even of Christ and the pattern of the Christian community. He noted that some writers connected Freemasonry with them, but that not being a Freemason himself he could not make a judgement. He considers that the best way to counter those views is to set out the evidence, beginning with the Christian Fathers. If there had been virtue in the mysteries, the Fathers would have used them to defend Christianity instead of attacking them. strangely misrepresents Origen in particular: Characteristick 201–3 discussed Origen Contra Celsum, inserting Origen’s word yραµµατα in apposition to “myths and writings” (Fabeln und Schriften). (Coleridge supplied Origen’s µνθους “stories”, the obvious word.) Tr: Origen himself [Bk 1 p 11] seems to judge favourably of the Mysteries. Celsus claimed that he knew everything the Christians taught. Origen replied, that there was much he did not know, and various matters he did not know correctly but had heard about them from ignorant people. To build on information from such people is as if one were to pass judgement on the wisdom of the Egyptians after listening only to the
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conversation of the common people without having any association with the priests or having instruction in their mysteries. “What I have said about the wise men of the Egyptians and the common people can also be said of the Persians. Both nations have mysteries which are guarded by wise men, whereas the common people get to see only the outer signs or symbols, and are left with a superficial view. The same may be said of the Syrians and Indians and of all who have both myths and writings (γραµµατα).” Sallust…describes the Kosmos: I.e. in Concerning the Gods and the Universe § 3, as “Myth par quoted in CN III 3902 and n, and below in this n. f44 excellence”—Coleridge’s addition. Logos as Mythologizing: Sallust did not use these words, and the creative but having said in § 2 that the gods are not separate from the First Cause any more than our thoughts are from the mind, he continued in § 3: Tr: Consideration of those who have employed myths justifies us in saying that myths are divine; for indeed the inspired among poets, and the best of philosophers, and the founders of solemn rites, and the gods themselves in oracles have employed myths…. Again myths represent the active operations of the gods. The universe itself can be called a myth, since bodies and material objects are apparent in it, while souls and intellects are concealed. Tr A.D.Nock (Cambridge 1926). Origen’s belief the transgression of Adam and Eve was a Muthos: In Contra Celsum IV 40 Origen said Tr:…the story of Adam will be interpreted philosophically by those who know that Adam means anthropos (man) in the Greek language; and that in what appears to be concerned with Adam, Moses is speaking of the nature of man. For, as the Bible says, “in Adam all die” and they were condemned in “the likeness of Adam’s transgression”. Here the divine word says this is not so much about an individual as of the whole race. Moreover in the sequence of sayings which seem to refer to one individual, the curse of Adam is shared by all men. There is also no woman to whom the curses pronounced against Eve do not apply. Tr Henry Chadwick Origen Contra Celsum (Cambridge 1953). Characteristick makes no mention of Origen on this subject. In what editions or commentaries Coleridge read Origen has not been discovered. “in Hebrew letters”. Not in Characteristick. Origen Contra Celsum III 6 said that “the Hebrew letters that Moses used to write the five books thought sacred by the Jews were different from the Egyptian”. Time, as the sole measure of Space: See 4929 f28 and f28v.
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The Author is ignorant of the true sense of the Gods: Cf 4555, 4625, 4910, and see also the next entry. Cf Coleridge’s enthusiasm for Creuz-er’s views in this respect in 4831 and 4832. f44v it behoves us to distinguish the…Speculative from the practical: In 5080n below a quotation from Op Max (MS) is relevant. 4900 23.56 Characteristick der alten Mysterien 134–6 (see 4899) summarised Arnobius Adversus nationes V Chap 32–45: Tr: Lastly Arnobius passes judgment on the method of those who reduce the stories of the Gods to allegories. It is said that by Jupiter we are to understand the rain, by Ceres the earth, and by their mingling the penetration of the rain into the earth. Proserpina is supposed to be the seed of the fruits which is buried beneath the earth, and this is the significance of her rape by Pluto, just as, when it is said that Jupiter had intercourse with Proserpina, this is to show that the seed gets its growth from the rain. But these are subtleties and sophistries that make the representation even more scandalous and of which people originally had no idea. There are too many details left over in every story that cannot be explained in this way. What is the ox supposed to be, that Jupiter changed himself into when he had to do with Ceres? What is the meaning of the unwillingness with which Ceres met the violence offered her? What is the meaning of the flowers gathered by Persephone, the torches of Ceres, her wanderings, her arrival in Attica and at Eleusis? Baubo’s hut, her hospitality, the drink she offered Ceres, Ceres’ refusal of it, Baubo’s lifting her skirt, and Ceres’ pleasure at this sight? If one were to say “Only one point is allegorical, the rest is not” where is the criterion for distinguishing the one from the other? On this basis allegory and history would be forever mingled, and this ineptly. Proserpine would be the seed brought under the earth, and yet at the same time she is a girl gathering flowers. Atys would be the sun and yet be born in Phrygia and have experienced many human vicissitudes. Either it must all be allegory, or none of it is allegory. And it is easy to show this from the Mysteries, which had an origin and reasons for their establishment. Is the fir tree carried ceremonially in the temple of the Mother of the Gods not an image of that under which Atys castrated himself? Does not the setting up of the picture of a phallus refer to the scandalous behavior of Bacchus? And were not the Eleusinian Mysteries and secret practices celebrated in memory of the wanderings of Ceres, her coming to Attica, and her bringing of crops with her? If the Mysteries had their origin in real actions how can they be changed into allegories? By doing so one reproaches the Gods and expresses oneself in a shameful manner, whereas formerly one was dressing shameful actions in honourabie images. Is it not unbecoming to represent the penetration of the rain into the earth by the picture of Jupiter with his own mother? And where is the slightest necessity to cloak this so familiar and everyday event, for which we have proper and decent words, in pictures, and those such scandalous ones?
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Arnobius, who knew nothing of the Mysteries but by Hear-say: Characteristick says (124) that Arnobius wrote c 297–303 A.D. (126), that he was not himself initiated into the Mysteries of the Great Mother, and that he drew from Clement of Alexandria, adding some further details of his own. f45 the more August Mysteries: I.e. excluding principally the Bacchic and Cybelic. Cf Lect II of Phil Lects (1949) 9011, from Notebook 25 f29: Tho’ I take as my criterion of the best Religion that which best evolves the purest morals by proposing to the People the strictest rule and loftiest Ideal, I am far from deeming this the whole of Religion—nay, I regard it no otherwise as Religion itself, than as I regard the Fruit of a Tree to be the Tree. In my sense of the term, it would not deserve the name of Religion, if it did not inculcate the beliefs of a divine Providence, a responsibility not confined to the Life present, and if not teach yet tend to excite, and predispose to, a sense of the Evil in the Heart of Man and a Hope, however dim and mythical, of a Redeemer therefrom. Thus but for the Mysteries Cabiri, Eleusinian—&c I should scarcely concede the possession of a Religion to the Greeks—and am little disposed to acquiesce in Creuzer’s assertion, that their popular mythology was a necessary or even expedient vestibule to the doctrines of the Mysteries. Highgate Decembr. 26, 1818. Origen, who had studied the subject, speaks very, very much more respectfully: See above 4899 f43v, and Contra Celsum IV 10 and VI 22. 4901 23.57 Varro’s a quo=ex quo…ipsa actio: In noticing “Varro’s from which=out of which—and according to which” and adding “continuous action, or action itself”, Coleridge was commenting on the account in Characteristick der alten Mysterien (see 4899) of Varro as reported by St Augustine City of God VII xxviii: Tr: Varro [according to Augustine] similarly explains the famous Samothracian Mysteries, of which he says that he intends to expound what the partakers themselves do not know. And he continued, that he has concluded, from many indications, that one of their statues represents the sky, which is male, the second the earth, which is female, and a third the patterns of things (exempla) which Plato calls “ideas”; and he calls the sky that by which (a quo) the earth that of which (ex quo) and the pattern that according to which (secundum quod) all things are created… Characteristick 173 O ων of St. John: “Who is”, John 1:18; see 5256 below and n. Pleroma Realitatis: “Fullness/Plenitude of Reality”, words often used by Coleridge. Pleroma appears in John 1:16. Cf 5233 below and n. Idea Idearum: “Idea of Ideas”, in the Platonic sense. Cf above 4739 and n. πνεvµα τρις αγιον: “spirit thrice holy”; see 5248 below and n. under which last term the Hebrews…united the Logos and the Pneuma: Described in Eichhorn NT II 169–71; see above 4870 and n.
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Samothracum…pollicetur: Coleridge inserted the words Ecclesiæ, into the loose quotation (in the Characteristick 173) of Varro in St Augustine regarding the Samothracian Mysteries, making the sentence read: “He [Varro] promises to expound in Church and things that are not known even to her writing the mysteries of the own members”. Varro, de seipso: “Varro, about himself’, Characteristick ibid. On Varro see below 5232 f39 and n. 4902 23.58 The last paragraph of the entry was written on f46 before the last part of 23.33 (in CN V) was written. The entry seems to be a continuation of 4897 above, on the composition of Exodus 1–11. It was perhaps triggered by Coleridge’s reading in Eichhorn AT II 348–52: Tr: Elsewhere series of events are summarily placed togeher which are separated by intervals of time from one another and which were hardly known to the Lawgiver all at the same time. Thus in Exodus 3:19–22 there appears the statement of something that could not possibly have been known until the last day of the exodus of the Hebrews: that only when Pharaoh was brought to the utmost extremity would he let the people go, and that they would take with them many valuables from the hands of the Egyptians. Also, the fact that just before the release of the Israelites Pharaoh’s first-born prince would lose his life could hardly have been known as early as it is reported, in Exodus 4:23. IV. 2–9: Ex 4:2–9, actually 4:1–9, gives the account of the two signs that God gave Moses to show him that he would be able to convince Pharaoh with signs and wonders: the first, turning the rod into a serpent and back again; the second, afflicting his hand with leprosy and then restoring it. Inventions of Harmonists: See below 5041 and n. anticipations…III. 22: Ex 3:22 is God’s statement to Moses, cited by Eichhorn, that the Israelites would take jewels and raiment from the Egyptians as they departed. Pars-maximist: Coleridge’s coinage for the compiler/editor of the “greatest part” of these documents. 24, 25, 26: Ex 4:24–6 is an interjected account of Zipporah’s circumcising Moses’ and her son. Coleridge used this ambiguous story as a sample of the misplaced fragments. f46 the Vth.: Ex 5 gives an account of Moses’ difficulties in persuading Pharaoh to release the Israelites. The entry is unfinished, but appears to question Mosaic authorship of Ex 5. 4903 29.97 In Part, omitting the reference to Hartley, in AP 300. idiocies: “Hartley’s idiocies”; cf “a chain of strange almost Idiocies, Neglects, Provocations, and Promise-breach” referred to in a letter of 15 Jan 1822 to Derwent: CL V 196. “rational Self-love”, the same as “enlightened Self-love”: Coleridge knew by identification that the root of HC’s failures was a sense of guilt; see the close of a letter to Allsop 8 Oct 1822: CL V 252.
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On “the Doctors of Self-Love”, for one example among many of his vigorous objections, see CN III 3559 and n. Coleridge’s attacks on Paley are to be found through the index to every CN volume. Rochefacault: Francois Rochefoucauld (1613–80), whose Maxims ran to many editions and translations, and whose works had recently been collected, in 1818. 4904 29.98 Printed in Inq Sp § 248. This entry, in a hand and ink like 4903, is probably of the same 6 July 1822 date. 4905 29.99 Tuesday 15 July 1822 would have been the 23rd Day of Derwent’s Fever— thought to have been typhus, of which there was a severe epidemic in Cambridge at the time. Typhus was sometimes called “the 21-day Fever”. The period was one of accumulated miseries for Coleridge. He and the Gillmans were in financial straits, the burden of which was embarrassingly increased for Coleridge by the domestication of Hartley with all his problems and odd manners (4903), Mrs C’s nagging, and now Derwent’s illness. Hartley hurt his father badly by leaving unceremoniously without announcement while Derwent was still considered to be in danger. See CL V 245–8. 4906 29.100 More literal and more laborious than Coleridge’s translation, “Often years are as nothing—moments how weighty”. See the previous note, and, for what Coleridge felt about Hartley’s conduct as a moment heavy with significance at this time, CL V 251. 4907 29.101 The differences in the beliefs of the Greek Church and those of the Latin, on the procession of the Holy Ghost, preoccupied many English theologians, e.g. Richard Field Of the Church (1635) 51– 3 (Bk III Chap I), which work Coleridge annotated heavily, John Pearson An Exposition of the Creed (1741) 325–6, and various others. µη οντως οντα: “Things not really existing”. the Nous: “Mind”; cf 4796 f49. Logos: “the Word”. See e.g. 4554 and n above. πνευµα: “breath or spirit”. Se effundens+Effluens se refundens: “pouring Itself out, and as it flows out, pouring itself back”. Cf 5249. Forms+Lux+Lumen=Sol: “Forms plus the source of Light plus created Light equal the Sun”. Cf 5290 and n. Lux lucifica: “light-creating Light”. Radii Luciferi: “Light-bringing Rays”. Uranions…Pleroma Actualitatum: “heavenly ones, Ideas in divine form, eternal truths, Plenitude of Actualities”. Cf 5241 f29v. How art thou fallen, Lucifer, Son of the Morning: Isa 14:12. actus absolutus sine potentialit[at]e: “absolute act without any potentiality”; see 4644, 4998. the Luciferi: “the Light-Bearers”. To θειον: “the Divine”. τo πονηρον: “evil”. τo ανθρωπινον: “humanity”. 4908 29.102 f67v Coleridge had been reading Johann Carl Passavant, Untersuchungen über den Lebensmagnetismus und das Hellsehen (Frankfurt am Main 1821). Magia Thelematica, Thelematomagy, or Zoo-magnetism: For Thelematic “of or pertaining to will or volition” OED quotes Bentham. Coleridge’s sceptical terms—here
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“will-magic”—for animal magnetism at this date indicate some decline in enthusiasm (see 4512 and n) but, as he said, no basic change in his attitude towards mesmerism. Passavant’s approach appealed to Coleridge because it was that of a medical man interviewing patients and citing cases, interested in the historical background of his subject and seeing in it a pious argument for the power of the spiritual. There were in his work links with magnetists familiar by name to Coleridge, and he made frequent references to Moritz’s psychological magazine, Gnōthi Sauton (see CN III 3587n). the Idea: I.e. of the possibility of the transference of influence from the magnetiser, or mesmerist, to another person, as Passavant describes it in his introduction, “Von der magischen Kraft des Menschen in All-gemeinen” (Of the magical/mysterious power of human beings in general). (Pt I Chap 1 § i). the argument from anatogy: Passavant’s Pt I Chap 3 is entitled “Von den Wirkungen der magischen Kraft auf die verschiedenen Naturreiche” (Of the operations/processes of magical power/energy in the different realms of the natural world). f68 Depth…Space…Length…Breadth: See for some elucidation of this point, 4515, 4929 and nn. the Female who misled Montanus & thro’ him Tertullian: The story comes from a French report in Annales du magnetisme animal (Paris 1814—see 4512 n above) “Observations occasioned by the fall of Tertullian by means of somnambulistic revelations. By J.B.de Joannis, Mayor of Tourquant near Saumur” in Archiv für den thierischen Magnetismus 11 ii 160–61: Tr: It is demonstrated here from the writings of Tertullian that there were somnambulists at that time and that Montan and the other founders of sects of the time were just such clairvoyant somnambulists. Tertullian relates of one: “In her transports she sees and hears the heavenly mysteries, she knows what is hidden in the hearts of divers persons, gives curative simples to those who desire them.” These phenomena are important for the history of animal magnetism, and it might easily be demonstrated physiologically and psychologically that Mohamet and other prophets were but natural somnambulists. Böhme is referred to by Passavant (123–4); on Swedenborg in this context, see e.g. 4799 and many other entries in this volume. On Philo and Porphyry and their fantasies see e.g. on the first, Lect 7 P Lects (CC) ff326–327, and on the second, 5079, 5081, 5207 and nn. Bleton is described by Passavant as a “metal-feeler” of the previous century, a waterdiviner from Dauphine, a man without education whose skill was variously tested. (He was in fact a public sensation.) In the next paragraph Campetti is mentioned, a young Italian contemporary, attested by a “Physiker, von Ritter”. Coleridge may have read of him in C.A. Kluge Magnetismus (245). In the next paragraph comes Catharina Beutler, apparently a stolid, heavy, healthy woman who early in life displayed to the learned persons around her, near Constance, great gifts of divination of water and metals, and she also had powers of healing. Passavant (128–31) writes of her in the present tense, which may or may not be Coleridge’s whole evidence.
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Of Aymar (spelled Aimar) long stories are told (132–8) of his prowess in tracking down murderers by his gift of second sight and his use of a piece of wood as a sympathetic conductor of reactions. Frau Pedegache (140 foll) is said also to have had powers of seeing things buried in the earth, and at a great depth. She could not see the human body through clothing, but she could see internal organs, abcesses, etc, if a body was bare, and whether a sevenmonth foetus was male or female. There are other stories about her, and Oken included her in his Die Curiositäten. Zahuris of Spain: Passavant (158–9) wrote about her in the Weimar periodical. See the Zahuris also in CN II 3143. Jean Paul Richter introduced into the first part of Titan a Zahuri who comes from Spain to see his son, telling him that he has seen the dead deep in the earth and knows when they appear and speak, but he can neither see nor hear them on earth. Richter has a note to the effect that the Zahuris of Spain were wellknown and relied upon for their skill in discerning corpses, metal-work etc, underground. Titan (Berlin 1800) I 76; see CN III 4276, 4279 and nn on Coleridge’s reading of this work. QR (Jan 1820) XXII 373–4 had an article “Popular Mythology of the Middle Ages” with a fn on water-divining by means of hazel switches, saying that “The faculty so inherent in certain persons is evidently the same with that of the Spanish Zahories, though the latter do not employ the hazel twig”. f69 we ought to begin at the other end: I.e. not with generalizations, as Schelling does, e.g., in his “Ideen und Erfahrungen über thierischen Magnetismus”: Jahrbücher der Medicin als Wissenschaft (Tübingen 1807) II ii 158–90, and as Kluge also does in his Versuch einer Darstellung des animalischen Magnetismus als Heilmittel (Berlin 1815) of which the “Theoretischer Theil” Pt I is given 308 pages, Pt II “Praktischer Theil” 130 pages. Possibly the remark was stimulated here by Passavant’s generalisations in his Pt I 40 foll. f68v all Infidels…during the five first centuries of the Church: E.g. Lucian? Porphyry? Philostratus? See Lect 7 P Lects (CC) 27–9. Italian Paganists at the restoration of literature: Referring to the Renaissance Platonists; cf Lect 10 P Lects (CC) ff444–446. clair-voyance, Hell-sehen, Inward Vision…: The second division of Part I of Passavant’s work is “Vom Somnambulismus und Hellsehen”, which includes five subsections on clairvoyance in dreams, in illness, on the verge of death, in contemplation, in the prophets. See also above 4808. Part II of Passavant, on Lebensmagnetismus, is historical, reviewing Hebrew, Indian, Greek and Roman, Nordic, and Christian evidences for the inspirability of man. f69 suscipiency: Not cited by OED before 1885; subscipient was used by some of Coleridge’s favourite 17th-century divines. f69 the Cases…do not bear out the Theory: Unlike many of his con-temporaries, Coleridge believed in the general integrity of the facts presented, but not in the logic of the theory. He advocated in this context the inductive method. Wienholt comes nearest to this: Arnold Wienholt appears in 4622 f19 in a list of scientists with Bacon, Boyle, and Helmont. See 4622 and n. Kluge: Coleridge’s copy of C.A.Kluge’s Versuch, heavily annotated by Coleridge, is in the BM. See P Lects (CC) Lect 10 f461 fn, Lect 2 n 64, Lect 7, n32.
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4909 29.103 Haliburton’s Life: Thomas Halyburton Memoirs of the Life of the Reverend, Learned, and Pious Mr. Thomas Halyburton, Professor of Divinity in the University of St. Andrews (Edinburgh 1797). Many editions were printed, with great variations in substance, but from the page references in this entry it is obvious that Coleridge is reading the tenth edition, 1797. Following the portrayal of his youthful struggles (Pt III Chap I 61–79) there is a description of “the dreadful Strait I was at last brought to, with my Outgate”. This “Outgate” experience is then described in Pt III Chap II 79–98, “Containing an Account of the Outgate I got about the close of January 1698, and the State of Matters thereon”. From severe and prolonged depression, he records a sudden release, which he attributes to “the Word”, not any one particular text but “the concurring Light of a great many of the promises and testimonies of the word seasonally set home, and most plainly expressing the truths above mentioned” (83) “But it was not the word alone that conveyed the discovery” (83)—i.e. not “the letter” of the Scriptures, but rather “there was a light in them”, which “burning light shone into my mind”, and was “more than a mere “spark kindled by my own endeavours…” (83). He goes on to describe the loss of his guilt, fear, and self-doubt and an exchange for a state of cheerfulness, hope, and an opening-out of himself towards the world at large. mean by the Blood of Christ: Halyburton quotes the phrase frequently—e.g. Pt III Chap II 81 (from Rom 3:24) and Chap V 127. Archbish. Leighton for instance: See f70 below. f70 Lord himself mean to convey, John VI: John 6:53–6, which records Jesus’ command to his disciples to eat of his flesh and drink of his blood. this, he explained, was a spiritual Substance: John 6:63. St John as an Eye-witness…corporeal & animal Blood: See above 4626, 4854 and nn. a marginal note in the first Vol. of Leighton’s Works: In Gillman’s copy (4 vols 1819) I 2; the note reads in CM under Leighton: By the blood of Christ I mean, that I contemplate the Christ, first as Christus Agens, the Jehovah Christ, God the Word; and secondly, As Christus patiens, the God Incarnate. In the former (i.e. as Chr. agens) he is relative to the human intellect Lux lucifica, Sol intellectualis; relativè ad existentiam humanam, he is the Anima animans, Calor fovens. In the latter, i.e. as Christus Patiens, he is Vita vivificans, Principium Spiritualis (id est, verae ) Reproductionis in vitam veram. Now this principle, or Vis Vitae vitam communicans, considered in forma passiva, assimilationem patiens, at the same time that it excites the soul to the vital act of assimilating—this, I say, is the Blood of Christ, really (vere seu spiritualiter) present thro’ Faith and actually (actu) partaken by the Faithful. Haliburton…doubts respecting…a Supreme Being: Halyburton Pt III Chap VI “Recounting my exercise about the Being of God, and shewing the way of my Outgate from this Temptation” 131–8. Omnibus dependentibus præsumitur independens: “before all dependents an independent is presumed”.
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Heterozetesis: On this logical falacy see BL (CC) I 142n3. in Thy Light did I see light: This is the leading idea in Halyburton’s Pt III Chaps II, VI, VII (79–98, 131–45), and there are many such phrases there—e.g. “And now the light being come, and the Lord seen in his own Light…” (135–8 and similarly 152–3). f70v with regard to the written Word: Halyburton Pt III Chap VII “Containing an Account how I came to be satisfied that the Scriptures are the Word of God, and how Temptations in reference to them were repelled” (138–53). As Coleridge points out, Halyburton came to be concerned only with the effect of “a light reflected on the whole Scripture” (145). f71 Smiles of the Soul…p. 193: This is the page number that identifies Coleridge’s edition; Halyburton Pt IV Chap V: …March 23 1712. the Lord’s day, a day to be remembered by me, a day wholly spent in prayer and praise, an introduction to life: “O my soul! never forget what this day I felt, I reached. My soul had smiles that almost wasted Nature.” My kind colleague and I prayed alternately: “O such a sweet day!” About half an hour after Sabbath, my child, after a sharp conflict betwixt nature and the disease, slept pleasantly in Jesus, to whom pleasantly he was oft given. Plotinus: Not quoted by Halyburton, who clearly had little Latin and no Greek; the passage is from Enneads VI. 9.9 with minor variants from Coleridge’s edition, ed Ficino, Basle 1580 (CN I 201n): “Thus we have all the vision that may be of Him and of ourselves, but it is of a self wrought to splendour, brimmed with the Intellectual Light, become that very light, pure, buoyant, unburdened, raised to Godhood or, better, knowing its Godhood, all revealed then—but crushed out once more if it should take up the discarded burden.” Tr (adapted) Stephen MacKenna (1930). Princes=δυναµεις η δυνασται…: “powers, or powerful ones falling away from the plenitude? Rulers of the air?” The word Aεραρχοι derives from Eph 2:2. των ορωµενων: Coleridge translates: “of the seen”. Hence (says Pl[otinus]) it was forbidden…in the Mysteries: Enneads VI 9 10–11: “The man is changed; no longer himself or self-belonging, he is merged with the Supreme…which is to be known only as one with ourselves. This is the purpose of that rule of our Mysteries: Nothing divulged to the Uninitiate.” Tr ibid. words represent abstractions and generalizations only: Cf 4835. all and each of his Sins: Halyburton throughout sets forth his sins, but perhaps Coleridge is thinking of Pt IV Chap Iv where he lists “Queries to be considered as my private Case” (177–8). f71v image from his own book…Francesco de Sales: Halyburton Pt III Chap V 126–7: Hereon I essayed to humbly my self distinctly for every one of them, and to make a distinct Application to the throne of grace about each; but when I began to observe them, they were so many, that if I had followed this course, my whole time would not have sufficed: Hereon the Lord led me to that course, which a worthy friend, to whom I owe much for a distinct understanding of the Lord’s work with me, told me what Franciscus
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Desales a Popish casuist advises to in this case; I was fain to take them all in the lump, or rather to go with them all on me at once, and plunge my self in the fountain that’s opened for sin and for uncleanness…. That Popish casuist before mentioned, as my worthy friend told me, illustrates this by a very elegant similitude, “If a Man see one or two filthy creatures on him, he shakes or washes them off: But if he look and see himself all overspread with such, then he must bethink himself of some general course, he goes to some bridge, and leaps into a deep pool, and drowns them all, and leaves them behind him. For Coleridge’s complaint of a similar mechanical system in Jeremy Taylor see 5370. One notes that Coleridge introduces the tactile details of the aromatic Bath, the Lice, Fleas, Bugs, and rags. Coleridge was interested in Francesco de Sales; see CN III 3907 f56 and n, but he attributed this idea to Luther in a marginal note on A Companion to the Altar bound with his copy of BCP; see CM I BCP 31. The Moravian Doctrine: for Coleridge on Moravianism see CN III 4169 and n, and 4671; on the limitations of Puritan attitudes on this point see CN III 3901. RS Life of Wesley I 80, 158–9 describes the Moravian doctrine of assurance of salvation at the moment of conversion and tranquility thereafter. ƒx 79 and fx 79v: The two paragraphs given in this peculiar foliation were once on a slip of paper pinned to f79v; clearly it ought to have been attached to f71v. the 5 last lines of p. 19…3 first of p. 20: Halyburton Pt I Chap I “Narrating the state of matters with me from the time of my birth till I was about ten years of age, or thereby”: 2. I cannot at all conceive it consistent with the wisdom, goodness, or equity of God, to send me thus into the world, without any fault on my part. To say I was thus originally framed without respect to any sin chargeable to me, is a position so full of flat contrariety to all the notions I can entertain of the Deity, that I cannot think of it without horror much less can I believe and give assent to it. The two following sentences are: 3. Penal, then, this corruption must be, as death and diseases are. And whereof can it be a punishment, if not of Adam’s sin? not in Time…timeless: For Coleridge on the necessity of this distinction see references in CN III 3763n and above in 4853. 4910 29.104 Part of the material in this entry was used in Coleridge’s lecture “On the Prometheus of Aeschylus”; see LR II 356–7. f71v W.Wordsworth’s incomparable Ode: For Coleridge on the Intimations of Immortality Ode elsewhere, see Chap XXII BL (CC) II 138, 147, 152–4; also The Friend (CC) I 40 n, 509–10. He is here misquoting from memory:
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Earth fills her lap with pleasure of her own; Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind, And, even with something of a Mother’s mind, And no unworthy aim, The homely Nurse doth all she can To make her Foster-child, her Inmate Man, Forget the glories he hath known, And that imperial palace whence he came. WPW IV 281. In Coleridge’s edition of Henry More’s Philosophical Poems (Cambridge 1647) referred to in CN III 4316n, The Prœexistency of the Soul begins at p 255 (misprinted 225); his copy is now lost, but his marginalia on it were published by Ingleby, and more accessibly by T.Ashe in Miscellanies (1885) 332–6, neither of whom printed annotations on this poem. The article on More’s Song of the Soul No 212, in Omniana II 155–77, is full of RS’s antagonisms; see TT (Ashe) 392–3 for Coleridge’s comment dated 27 Dec 1819. f72 In the quotations Coleridge transcribed here, the italics are his, also the glosses, the one on § 6 being compressed in the right hand lower corner of the page. § 7 continues after his two-line extract:
Though now, whether through our own miscariage Or secret force of fate, that all doth move We be cast low, for why? the sportful love Of our great Maker (like as mothers dear In pleasance from them do their children shove That back again they may recoyl more near) Shoves of our souls a while, the more them to endear. Vesta: Vesta, the Greek Hestia represented Earth and the central fire, as well as hearth and home; cf 5090 and n. , fluo: “I flow”. See above 4868 and n. Pan: The name is identical with the neuter singular, “all”. See above 4868 and n. v = whēthr: Coleridge is explaining the scansion of line 3, § 8. f72 Præteritum…continuum: “past still present or past continuous”. renitence: OED, quoting H.More for a 1676 use, says “obs”, meaning physical resistance or pressure; here used metaphorically. perpession: Here “experience of external impact or influence.” Cf More’s § 14 lines 7–9.
All ear, all eye, with rayes round shining bright; Sphear of pure sense which nor perpessions curb Nor uncouth shapen Spectres ever can disturb.
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Like “passion”, an ambiguous word. See More’s “Interpretation General” (421) in the volume being used here, justifying strange words in poetry. pseudography: Not in OED. foreslow: On υer…υerkochen…υerreissen and German prefixes generally see CN II 3160. Cf More § 16:
But earthly-mindednesse may eath foreslow Their flight, then near the ground in airy weeds they go; Stanza 17 reads:
Awak’d to life more ample than before, If they their fortune good could then pursue. But sith unwillingly they were ytore From their dear carkasses their fate they rue, And terrene thoughts their troubled minds embue: So that in languishment they linger near Their wonted homes and oft themselves they shew; Sometimes on purpose, sometimes unaware That wak’d by hasty call they streightway disappear. f73 Stanza 18: Sleep-walking interested Coleridge in the literature of animal magnetism; see above 4512, 4908 and nn. Idiozoic Life: Not in OED; sensible life, having sensibility, life peculiar to the animal. See 4617 and n. dead pro tempore: dead “for the time being”. Zoë entomöides: Coleridge’s insectiform Life is an exact equivalent of the Greek phrase. insectiform Life…Irritability or Arterio-muscular Life: On the terms for three kinds of life see 5168 and n. See also 4813 f53v, 4884, 4886, 4894, 4896, 4929 and nn. parenchymatous: The word parenchyma is attributed by OED to Purchas; it came much into use in the surge of progress in biology and anatomy in the early nineteenth century. Neurolepsia: Not in OED. “nervous seizure”. auras electricas: “electric airs” or “auras”; see e.g. 4896 and n. what you look: A slip for what you like? Des Cartes: For a similar objection see CN III 3605 and n, and Lect 12 P Lects (CC) ff 550–554. Plotinus: Many of Coleridge’s comments on Plotinus would gloss this remark; see e.g. CN II 2164, 2167 and nn. f73v the πρωτον ψευδος…that they commence with an Abstraction: The “fundamental error” is again the one often charged by Coleridge against the German transcendentalists; see 4839 f121v. See also CN III 3824 f112v, 4449 and nn. Pseudo-platonists: Like Henry More. Epicurean-Naturalists: Like Gassendi?
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Suffictions or hypopoieses: See CN III 3587. the eight orbs…: Referring to Psychanathasia, or the Immortality of the Soul Bk I Canto 3:
This number suits well with the Universe: The number’s eight of the Orbs generall, From whence things flow or wherein they converse, The first we name Nature Monadicall, The second hight Life Intellectuall, Third Psychicall; the fourth Imaginative, Fifth Sensitive, the sixth Spermaticall, The seventh be fading forms Quantitative, The eighth Hyle or Ananke perverse, coactive. Philosophical Poems (1647) 100. 4911 29.105 Ante-nicene Fathers…misquoted by the Artans: Cf Waterland’s arguments in his Second Vindication of Christ’s Divinity (1723), 27–8, 78–105, in which he accuses Samuel Clarke of misunderstanding such Fathers as Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, and Tertullian. Coleridge quoted from this work in annotating Field Of the Church (Oxford 1635) 129–33; in CM. His annotated copy of the first Vindication (1719) is in the BM. in revising my lucubrations on the Trinity: See 5215. quasi Creation: “seeming Creation”; the Arian view, condemned by the Council of Nicea, that the Son was created. Coleridge said that in the Trinitarian controversy, Waterland “gave the death-blow to Arianism”; marginal note on Baxter Reliquiae Baxterianae (Copy B) CM I 358. “in the beginning”; John 1:1–2. “from the beginning”. 4912 29.106 Measures of Time in Daniel…& half a time: Dan 12:7 and 7:25; see 4794 f34v. Cf Rev 12:14. the Run of Commentators…chronological accuracy: Cf Eichhorn AT III 342–3: Tr: Nowhere but in Daniel do we meet such an exact prophetic measure of time. It is set forth now, “A time, two times, and a half a time” (Dan 7:25; 12:7), now “two thousand three hundred days” (8:14), now “one thousand two hundred and seventy days” (12:11, 12); and the better commentators all note that in most of the passages cited the numbers are not to be taken with literal exactitude. If the Days were in fact 1350…1270: Orthodox modes of interpreting these “time” prophecies have been to let the word time mean “year”, so that “a time and times and half a time” would stand for “a year and two years and half a year”, or “three and a half years”; the number of “days” in this period would thus be three and a half multiplied by 360 or 364, 1260 or 1270 “days”; each prophetic “day” would represent a literal year, and thus the prophecy is said to speak of 1260 to 1270 years. Precise totals vary among interpreters. See e.g. J.H.Frere A Combined View of the Prophecies of Daniel, Esdras,
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and St.John (1815) 197–204, and G.S.Faber A Dissertation on the Prophecies (2 vols London 1807) I ix-xxii 3–13, and passim. Both writers summarize other and similar views in the period. Coleridge was familiar with both works. See 4615 and n. the Pythagorean Wisdom: Coleridge frequently refers with respect to Pythagorean insights especially in symbolic mathematics; see e.g. CN III 3818n and 4784, 4831, 5406, 5439 and nn. See also two notes in P Lects (CC), Lect 2 n 33 and Lect 3 n 12, referring to marginalia critical of Tennemann on Pythagoreanism. 4913 29.107 Eichhorn AT III pointed out that the Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Solomon, and even Isaiah were all anthologies (83); that many of the psalms are wrongly ascribed to David (398–415, 429–38); and that Ecclesiastes is neither by Solomon nor from the time of Solomon but by the common Hebrew practice was ascribed to a former great man by a later writer (561–70). Cf in CM Eichhorn AT III 88, 101, where Coleridge seems to take (earlier?) a different view of what he there dubs Eichhorn’s “guess” about Isaiah. 4914 29.108 f75 Stoic Paradoxes: Cf CN III 4445 and n. See also 5121 below and n. Lord Bacon’s Christians Faith: Coleridge refers to “The Characters of a believing Christian, in Paradoxes, and seeming Contradictions. Compared with the Copy printed Lond. 1645”: Bacon’s Works (4 vols ed Mallett 1740) IV 504–7. It consists of twentyfour paradoxes, e.g. “He [the Christian] believes three to be one, and one to be three; a father not to be elder than his son: a son to be equal to his father…”. Cf Coleridge’s own Confessio Fidei in CN III 4005. Voltaire’s sarcastic use of lampooning paradox against the Bible and Christian orthodoxy scarcely needs documentation, but probably Coleridge is thinking specifically of Voltaire’s Dictionnaire philosophique, made up of his contributions to the Encyclopédie; see 5000 and n, SM:LS (CC) 75 and n, 83. Volney: See 4916 and n. Attacks on the paradoxical in religion occur everywhere also in Volney, but are concentrated particularly in Les Ruines Chap XXI, “Problems of Religious Contradiction”, and Chap XXII, “Origin and Genealogy of Religious Ideas”. 4915 29.109 the understanding in exclusion of the Reason: I.e. Reason in the ideal Kantian sense, (see 5170 and n) and understanding in the limited analytical sense. Unitarian & Mahometan: Persecution is rather a strong accusation to make against Unitarianism’s tendency to intolerant rationalism. Mahometanism, at least according to the letter of its laws, from the 7th century, tended to violence against all “infidels”, e.g. Christian and Jewish infidels. the same with the modern Jews: They were not all like Coleridge’s liberal-minded friend, Hyman Hurwitz; or was C thinking of the ostracism of Spinosa by his Jewish community after the anonymous Tractatus theologico-politicus (1670) was known to be by him? See CN II 2646n. Priestley and Belsham: See CN I 50, III 3905 and above 4750 and nn. Mystics: See e.g. CN III 3560 for one list, C&S (CC) 165 for another; and for visionaries contrasted with rationalists CN III 3907; for a commentary pertinent here, see, on St Teresa, CN III 3911. For a more general argument, see the Nous-Antinous dialogue 4931 and AR Conclusion 381 foll. The Appendix to C&S (CC) 165 derives the word mystic and refers to misinterpretations of it. 4916 29.110 Volney: Constantin-François, Comte de Volney (I 757–1820) Les Ruines, ou meditation sur les revolutions des empires (Paris 1791) went into twenty-two editions,
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exclusive of translations, in Volney’s lifetime. The edition to which Coleridge was here referring has not been identified. I read him, when young: See Lects 1795 (CC) 183 and nn. Wapping Bagnio: Brothel in the dock area of London. f75v Son of God…as old as his Father: See f76 below. Cf Bacon’s paradox quoted in 4914n above. adequate, & therefore…substantial, Idea: See 5159, 5421. rest of Volney’s Pseudo-Christian Creed: In Chap XXI “The Problem of Religious Contradictions” Volney sketched in sarcastic terms the dogmas and sacraments of the Roman Catholic church by setting up a debate among Moslems, Jews, Christians, Brahmins, Zoroastrians, and Lamists; see f76 below. haud ejusdem generis: “certainly not of the same kind”. co-incidences with the Zenda-vesta…Lamism, & the like: E.g. in the creation stories in the various sacred books; again Chap XXII. Cf 4794 ff36 and 36v. whimsical most arbitrary connections with Astronomy: Chap XXI links OT and Christian beliefs concerning the creation with astronomical calculations; also Chap XXII “Origin and genealogy of religious ideas” Sect XIII “Christianity, or the allegorical worship of the sun under the cabbalistical names of Chris-en or Christ and Yes-us or Jesus”. An obvious slip for “having heard”. f76 hearing passage commencing…: (1792) 110: Tr: Then with the Bible in one hand, and the Four Evangelists in the other, the doctor began to relate that in the beginning God (after having passed an eternity without doing anything) conceived at length the design (without apparent motive) of forming the world out of nothing: that having in six days created the whole universe, he found himself tired on the seventh: that having placed the first pair of human beings in a delightful garden to make them completely happy, he nevertheless forbade them to taste of the fruit of one tree which he planted within their reach: that these parents having yielded to temptation, all their race (as yet unborn) were condemned to suffer the penalty of a fault which they had no share in committing: that after permitting the human species to damn themselves for four or five thousand years, this God of compassion ordered his well-beloved son, engendered without a mother and of the same age as himself, to descend upon the earth in order to be put to death, and this for the salvation of mankind, the majority of whom have nevertheless continued in the road to sin and damnation: that to remedy this new inconvenience, this God, the son of a woman who was at once a mother and a virgin, after having died and risen again, commences a new existence every day, and under the form of a morsel of dough is multiplied a thousand fold at the pleasure of the basest of mankind. Tr Anon (1796). 4917 29.111 Tilloch’s Phil[osophical] Mag[azine]: The article is by William Spence, “On an Insect which is occasionally very injurious to Fruit-Trees” LIX 439–40:
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This tree is a remarkable example of the effect of partial decortication, as recommended by Dr. Darwin (Phytologia, p. 378), in inducing the production of flower instead of leaf-buds. Not only the bark, but half the trunk, as above observed, is eaten through in many places; yet though a new twig is scarcely ever put forth, it never fails to be laden with blossom and fruit. Here I may observe that a similar result, as to the increased produce of fruit, and the paler green of the leaves, with that above referred to by Dr. Darwin, I have myself seen on a branch of a pear-tree, from which nearly a complete cylinder of bark had been gnawed by cattle. It was filled with fruit, while not a pear was to be seen on the rest of the tree. Coleridge used Phil Mag earlier, in 4587, and possibly years before that; see CN III 4357, 4407nn. It may be noticed that he says only Consult Darwin’s Phytologia, p. 378, not stating that he has done so. Beginning on 377 Darwin reads: …the power, which produces the lateral germination of buds, seems to require a less mature organization than that, which is employed in the sexual generation of seeds; whence a kind of puberty of the plant seems to be acquired for the production of the seminal or amatorial progeny, analogous to the transformation of caterpillars into butterflies;… p 378: …if scions from a bearing walnut or mulberry tree were ingrafted on a feeding one, that it would produce fruit in two or three years; which otherwise would not occur in less than twenty. the Fly…whose eggs produce the Gooseberry Caterpillar appeared in a letter to the editor of Phil Mag, “Description of the Gooseberry Caterpillar; and practical means for preventing its ranges”. 4918 25.98 Dress, furniture [are] extensions of the appearance of the human person, the face he shows to the world? See a delightfully relevant little work by James Laver, Style in Costume (Oxford 1949). 4919 25.99 Of the English physiocrats, followers of François Quesnay (1694–1774), who believed that land was the source of all wealth and therefore ideally of all taxation, and that industry and commerce should run a free course, Coleridge may have been thinking of Cartwright (see CN III 3836, 3839, 3840) and of Malthus, Bentham, James Mill, all to some extent affected by the doctrine. See The Friend (CC) I 200–14. See also 4921 below. A State…subsists in its own productive Ideas: Cf C&S (CC) 37–41. 4920 25.100 Canning’s additional argument…not borrowed from The FRIEND: I.e., argument against parliamentary reform, measures being variously advocated by Francis Burdett especially, and by Cartwright and others, from c 1810 onwards. The essence of Coleridge’s objections to proposed reforms was not that reform was unnecessary, rather that it would be achieved not by quantitative changes in electoral method but by
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qualitative improvements in principles of government and in popular education towards that end. Cf The Friend (CC) I 262. Canning in a speech at Liverpool 30 Aug 1822, at a farewell dinner in his honour, having made numerous speeches against proposed reforms of The House of Commons, recited arguments of the reformers and said: If you reform the House of Commons, on the grounds of past misconduct, what will you do with the House of Lords?…If no such reform is to be applied to the House of Lords, what is the supposed effect upon that house of a reform of the House of Commons? Let us fairly speak out:—Is the unreformed House of Lords to continue in full vigour, to counteract the will of the reformed House of Commons? Where, then is the use of the reform?… Let any man say, that his views of reform go no farther than to the removal of blots, and I am with him. But it is because the arguments for reform…tend not to remedy, but to destroy; not to correct what may be amiss in a system of representation which combines all species of property, admits all species of industry, opens the door to all species of talent;—it is because they appear to me to tend to a system to be founded exclusively on what is called the power of the people; a power which, if recognised in the sense in which they proclaim it, must act, not in concert with other powers, not by a conflict and compromise of different interests; but by its own uncontrolled authority, supreme and alone;—it is for this reason that I think it right to oppose, in limine, projects of parliamentary reform. Gentlemen, it is said, however, that, besides the faulty composition of the House of Commons, there is an influence of the Crown which perverts and paralyzes all its functions. My first answer to this proposition is the same which I have made to the proposition for alteration in the House of Commons. How rarely does the House of Lords differ from the other house in its decisions?…Is it the influence of the Crown which predominates in the House of Lords too? If it is,—do you mean to leave the House of Lords still subject to the same influence, and still with an equal voice in the decision of every national question? If not—is not the project still, though upon another pretext, to erect an instrument which will make the operation of the House of Lords completely nugatory; to place in a new, an untried organ the whole practical energy of the constitution? The speech was reported in full in the Courier of 2 Sept 1822, probably an approximate date for the entry. This is the only published speech of Canning in which this “additional argument” about applying reform principles to the House of Lords was adumbrated. Is Coleridge suggesting what would be a radical change in the House of Lords? Answer. Why not?
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the King is allowed to make peers: “Since the fifteenth century a patent has been the regular means of creating a new peerage; it is now the means invariably used.” F.W.Maitland The Constitutional History of England ed H.A.L.Fisher (Cambridge 1963) 167. the State can only declare…: “In order that an act of the Crown may be recognized as an expression of the Royal will, and have any legal effect whatever, it must in general be done with the assent of, or through some Minister or Ministers who will be held responsible for it. For the Royal will can, speaking generally, be expressed only in one of three different ways, viz…. (3) by…patents, letters, or other documents under the Great Seal…. The Great Seal is affixed to a document on the responsibility of the Chancellor…” A.V.Dicey Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution (10th ed 1944) 325–6. 4921 25.101 In contending that art, science, and crafts are equally indigenous with agriculture, Coleridge was here extending his argument in 4919. See also The Friend (CC) 1178 and n 2. Night-man: One who empties cess pools and disposes of night-soil during the night. 4922 25.102 The momentous Error of H.Steffens in his Conception of the State: Cf Chap I “Die Stadt” in H.Steffens, Carkaturen des Heiligsten (Leipzig 1819) and see Coleridge’s comments on earlier pages of this chapter, in 4940–4942. Because misunderstanding is at issue, here the German is quoted (24–5): Herrscht aber die Freiheit nur da, wo die Notwendigkeit des Ganzen als ihr innerster Ausdruck hervortritt, so muss, wo der Staat in seiner Reinheit sich zeigt, der allgemeine Wille eins mit dem Besondern seyn, was ein Jeder will, zu erstreben sucht, von dem, was das Ganze will, ununterscheidbar seyn, die Trefflichkeit eines jeden Bürgers (und er ist in einem solchen Staat das vollkommene Bild der Tugend selbst) wird aus dem Ganzen, die Herrlichkeit des Ganzen aber aus einem Jeden hervorstrahlen. Kurz, die Idee des Staats, die eine eben so vollkommene und vollendete Organisation aller Staaten unter sich voraussetzt, ist von der Kirche nichts Verschiedenes, sie ist die Gemeinschaft des Heiligen. Tr: But if freedom only reigns where the necessity of the whole emerges as its innermost expression, then where the State is present in its purity, the general will is bound to be one with the particular, and what each individual wills and seeks to attain must be indistinguishable from what is willed by the whole; the excellence of each individual citizen (and in such a State he is the perfect image of Virtue itself) will shine forth from the whole, and the splendour of the whole will shine forth from each individual. In short, the Idea of the State, which presupposes an equally perfect and perfected Organisation of all states amongst themselves, is in no way different from the Church; it is the community of saints. In Vol II (1821) published with a foreword (missing in STC’s copy) dated 26 July 1820, Steffens took up the subject again at length, claiming to have been misunderstood in just the way Coleridge misunderstood him. He did not in fact, he argued, conceive the
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identity of church and state in institutional terms, but rather that it is (I) the religious spirit that is the animating principle of (2) the Ideal State. See also Caricaturen II 481: (1) Die Behauptung der Einheit des Staates und der Kirche droht, beide in ihrer Grundlage zu erschüttern, und steht in offenbaren Wiederspruche mit der Lehre dessen, der so ausdrücklich äusserte: Mein Reich ist nicht aus dieser Welt [II 425–26]. (2) Wir behaupten nun, dass das eigentliche Lebensprincip, der Grund und das Immanente des Staats, in so fern er die Offenbarung einer Idee seyn soll, ganz und durchaus die Religion sey…. Man hat uns dies getadelt, ja, irren wir nicht, denn klar ist es keineswegs ausgesprochen…. Die Idee des Staats ist, behaupten wir ferner, nur in seiner Einheit mit der Religion zu fassen; es gibt kein anderes Princip eines Staats, wie es ueberhaupt kein Princip irgend einer Idee, d.h. irgend einer Offenbarung eines Unendlichen in, mit und durch das Endliche gibt, welches nicht ein religiöses wäre, alle höhere Wissenschaft, Poesie und Kunst, wahre Sittlichkeit und Gerechtigkeit sind nichtig, wenn sie nicht diesen ihren religiösen Sinn behalten und etwas Göttliches, nicht als fernes Ziel, durch irdische Mittel zu erlangen, sondern als das unmittelbar Gegebene, was sich darzustellen sehnt, betrachten [II 630]. Tr: (I) The assertion of the unity of State and Church threatens to destroy both at their foundations and clearly contradicts the teaching of Him Who declared so expressly: “My kingdom is not of this world.” (2) Now we maintain that the true vital principle, the ground and immanence of the State, insofar as it is regarded as the manifestation of an Idea, is religious, wholly and entirely…. We have been criticized for this, indeed, if I am not mistaken, for it has certainly not been expressed clearly…. we maintain furthermore that the Idea of the State can be grasped only in its oneness with religion; there is no other princple in a state, just as there is no other principle in an idea—i.e., in any manifestation of the Infinite in, with, and through the Finite—that is not a religious manifestation; all the higher sciences, poetry and art, true morality and justice are nothing if they do not strive to preserve this their religious meaning, and through earthly means to reach after something Divine, not as a distant goal, but as what is immediately given, that yearns to manifest itself. Letters to Judge Fletcher: From 20 Sept to 10 Dec 1814 Coleridge addressed six letters to Mr Justice Fletcher on the Irish question which were published in The Courier: they were first collected in EOT III 677–748. The relations of church and state naturally entered into the subject; see Letter II: EOT (CC) II 379–85. the Thsis & Antithesis of
or+o or+×−: The reciprocal tension (of Church and State)
in a gravitation or at a point (+o—see 4974); or plus multiplied into minus, as he suggests. See 4941, 4942. Coleridge sees church and state as in a constant counterbalancing activity, each in part sustaining, each in part curbing the other.
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f102v St. Paul of Concupiscence: Rom 7:7–8: “What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead.” Omniana, article Toleration: Omniana II § 102, an expansion of two notebook entries, CN I 1013, 1014. inherent unrighteousness…of all Censorships, so rashly admitted by Fichte & German Philosophers: In a section of Das System der Sittenlehre (Jena and Leipzig 1798), Fichte attempted to resolve the conflict between the absolute freedom of conscience of the individual and the authority of church and state, both of which he recognized, the one as a corollary of his idealism, the other as a corollary of his statism. This he did by separating the two functions of scholars and servants of the state, inner integrity and public duty. As scholar, the thinker is utterly free (336): “Ich sage, Staat und Kirche müssen die Gelehrsamkeit als solche dulden.” (“I say State and Church must tolerate scholarship as such.”) But as teacher, preacher, and civil servant he owed a duty to the powers that be and was rightly forbidden by the state to utter his divergent views in the market-place. Coleridge noted that the seeds of tyranny are sown in this drastic distinction between the ideal and the real, the inner and the outer. Cf Fichte 337–8: Tr: The civil servant and teacher should not be a mere craftsman but a scholar. According to this, he is both: but his conscience has the duty, according to the principles expounded above, to distinguish precisely in his behaviour. For where he is a teacher of the people, or a state official, he is not a scholar, and where he is a scholar, he is not the former. It is an oppression of his conscience to forbid the preacher to utter his deviant convictions in learned publications; but it is completely in order to forbid him to preach them from the pulpit, and it shows lack of conscience on his part, if he were but enlightened enough, to do so. State and Church have the right to forbid the scholar to do so, and to prevent him from realising his convictions in the world of the senses. If he does so, if, for example, he does not obey the laws of the State, then he is rightly punished, whatever his inner thoughts on the matter may be; moreover, his own conscience should reproach him for it, for his action is immoral. In the 1809 Friend Coleridge contended against censorship; see The Friend (CC) II 57–9. 4923 29.220 Body in the abstract…Matter. See 4835 f64 on the proper functioning of abstraction, and 4910, where the decline of Platonism is attributed to its obscure and in part erroneous exploration of Matter, and the frequency with which Platonists confounded Matter with Body; see there ff73–74. τoπαγκοινον: “the common to all” or as Coleridge translated it below, “Universal” (spelling it πανκοινον). Cf 5110. (Anschauung oder Begriff): See 4714 and n. Kant’s “Anschauung” is often translated “intuition”, but also “perception”. “Begriff’ is the common term for a generalization from sense experience; see 5374 f9v” and n. See also Jacobi: “Es wird überhaupt nie genug erwogen, was für ein unendlicher Unterschied zwischen Bild und Sache, zwischen
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Begriff und Anschauung ist.” No XXI Allwills Briefsammlung: Jacobi Werke (3 vols Leipzig 1812–16) I 196; see 4815–4817 and nn above, and 5204 and n below. (Tr) “It is above all not sufficiently considered what an endless difference there is between image and thing, between concept and perception.” Coleridge was here using the two contrasting German words as extensions and clarifications of the ways in which matter can be regarded, i.e. determinate, seen by way of Anschauung, “perception”, or indeterminate, thought of by way of Begriff “concept”. Cf the use of Empfindung and Gefühl 5432. Lux=υis incorporea: “Light is an incorporeal power/force”. Cf a related discussion of “a Rainbow is a phænomenon—but not corporeal” in SM:LS (CC) 81 n 2. 4924 29.221 One main Object of my Work: The total body of his work? Op Max? AR? Probably the first; see the general statement in 5421 dated I Aug 1826. But if this is an 1822 entry, AR is a likely possibility; on 18 Jan 1822 Coleridge proposed to John Murray the incipient form of it, “The Beauties of Leighton”. CL V 197–200. In this letter there was a heated reference to “the late alarm respecting Church Calvinism and Calvinistic Methodism” as well as the inevitable “Dry Rot of ritual Socinianism”. f116 “to be carnally minded”; Rom 8:7; cf 4618 where Coleridge translated it, “Understanding to be of the flesh”. Grotian Verbo tenus: “as far as the Word”. Coleridge elsewhere condemned the tendency of Grotius and his followers to confine their rationalizing to the letter, although he thought they did so more intelligently than the Unitarians. See CN II 2640, CN III 3893 and nn; also below 5140n. 4925 29.222 Iagos: Coleridge’s stock example of the worst sort of self-interest; see e.g ShC I 53. “Each man for himself and God for us all”: A saying as old as Heywood’s Proυerbs (1546); quoted also in 5153 and 5317. 4926 29.223 This appears to be a draft of a brief prose idyll now in MS in McGill University Library, alleged (in another hand) to have been written for Miss Eliza Nixon, a Highgate next-door neighbour (5428). She is referred to in verses that mention her gifts of flowers: PW II 1009–10; her name first appears in a letter of 31 Oct 1821. CL V 186. the Evening Primrose…the Spring (Feder): See CN III 3320 and n, for Spring, Stahlfeder, CN III 3556 for the true Spring (Trieb feder und Bewegungsgrund) of human Actions, and especially CN III 4291 (The evening primrose—its suddeness—and irrevocability—the strange Feder = Spring); see also for a link with John Donne CN III 4291 n. Though it obscures somewhat the sexual implications of the botanical imagery, the McGill MS makes plainer the intention of the entry: Be aware, how you allow a causeless change to take place in your feelings toward a tried Friend: lest in making hollow another’s hope you undermine the foundations of your own Moral Being. Listen to an allegoric tale. It has brevity at least to recommend it. Once on a time, I beheld a Flower of late Summer, the fairest Daughter that ever Late Summer brought forth: and I saw a large Dewdrop fall on her; on this fair Flower, I mean. How gladly she seemed to welcome the glittering Stranger—she drank in lustre from his Light and
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renewed her fragrancy in his Freshness. Surely, she loved him—yea, in the pit and central Cell of her Petals she found a place for him wherein to rest. But ah! fair is too often fickle. And whether it were, that Joy in full Dress is wont to have Satiety for his Train-bearer, or that even on the purest Brilliants Custom will breathe a tarnish, I know not. But so it was, that after a while the Flower began to feel her inmate as a Weight, or (to say the least) as little better than some superfluous Chance-mote from the sweeping Water-pot, as the menial Gardiner strode onward. And now I marked a Zephyr passing by, and that he stopt for a moment, and wheeling fluttered round her: and the Flower felt a reawakening of an almost forgotten life in his freshness, and his murmur sounded so like the Prologue to a Lovesuit, that hastily and eagerly bowing and bending forward to listen after him, the Dew-drop was flung out from his Cell, and soon exhaling rose up in an invisible Vapor. Nevertheless, he hovered over the beloved Flower, and strove but strove in vain to intercept or quench the parching Shafts of Noontide, that too surely smote her in her loveliness. Ah! (lamented he) the condensing Power of sober Evening will come for me! Once again I shall descend, and fain would I descend on thee, O Flower!—Yea, on thy Petals will I rest, wan tho’ they be, wan and lustreless. But I shall fall, as a Tear, to mourn what I can no longer restore!—S.T.Coleridge—Ramsgate Novr 21 The date was poorly written at the bottom of the sheet; Coleridge was in Ramsgate in every November from 1821 to 1828. 4927 29.224 The ink is unlike that of the preceding entry, heavier and darker. Kittenracts: See CN I 412 f25v. the overture to Mozart’s Tancredi, from a Musical Box: The slip would have embarrassed Coleridge, who admitted technical ignorance of music but prided himself on preferring Mozart, Beethoven, and Purcell to the “nonsense verses” music of Rossini. TT 5 Oct 1830. See also Inq Sp § 178. Rossini’s two-act opera, Tancrède, based on Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered and Voltaire’s Tancrède, was first performed in Venice in 1813, in Munich in 1816; it was an immediate success, being full of lively easy melodies. The box Mr Gillman bought was therefore a contemporary one. At the time, “the musical box was the only form of automatic music available to all. The early ones played operatic selections almost exclusively…. Good ones were expensive and in England they were bought by upper and middle classes who appreciated Donizetti, Rossini, Mozart, Weber, Verdi…” John E.T.Clark Musical Boxes (3rd ed 1961) 19–23. 4928 29.225 In Inq Sp § 199. The appearance of ink suggests a date with 4927. Truths of Reason: In the Kantian sense of Reason, intuitions of e.g. ideas of God, free will. Quis…dixit: “Who said it?” “What did he say?”. 4929 23.34 f28 Genesis…of physical Powers abstractly contemplated: Cf the reference to the transcendent or genetic philosophy in CN III 4225 and the polar diagram in CN III 4226 where the NS axis corresponds to the Line of Being while EW=Surface of Becoming, and their intersection at the centre of the circle is the Neutrant, or the indifference or synthesis of the four circumferential powers. Cf CN III 4420 f20v and see
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an earlier statement about polarity in The Friend (CC) I 94. The two lines and their intersection may also be conceived as Thesis, Antithesis, and Synthesis respectively, as in CN III 4418 f14v. Power…Sphere…Existence: The diagram is perhaps an assertion within the broad tradition of Newtonian dynamism that matter exists by virtue of its powers, and is limited by the extent of their sphere of action. See Coleridge’s early interest in this subject in CN I 93. Resistance…Non-resistance…Force: Possibly related to Cole-ridge’s reading of Kant’s Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft (see 4621 and n). Though Coleridge’s diagrams scarcely needed any post-Newtonian hints, they may owe something e.g. to Kant’s first chapter, on “phoronomy”, where he considered matter as the movable in space (Coleridge’s Diagram III), and to the second chapter, on “dynamics”, where Kant explained how matter fills space by its moving force, which resists the motion or penetration of other matter (Coleridge’s Diagram II). Corollary, Motion in its relation to the human perception: Kant’s third chapter considered motion as “mechanics”; in the fourth, “phenomenology”, motion or rest are said to be determined merely by the mode of representation to the senses, i.e. as appearance. For a similar if more elliptical deduction with reference to the esemplastic and image-making Faculty, with no evident link with Kant, see CN III 4176, 4244 and n. f28v VI Centripetal…Centrifugal…Globific: Coleridge may have been attempting here to put in diagram form Kant’s general observation at the end of his fourth chapter where he discussed circular motion, involving centripetal and centrifugal forces in relation to gravitation. VII Magnetism…Electricity…Galυanism: Corollary: Coleridge here pursued the cosmogony sketched in CN III 4226 and in so doing combined the Kantian elements with Steffens’s polarities (see 4776n) to form a step-wise hierarchy of powers, although his comments on the pertinent pages of Steffens are highly critical, especially of Steffens’s lack-logic. Steffens in his Grundzüge 41–9 esp 45–8 discussed the magnetic and electrical poles at great length: Tr: In experimental physics, where it appears at its purest, the relative dominant Finite in the existing line, or in the magnetic axis, is called carbon; and when cohered, where it appears in itself as the densest of all materials, as diamond. The Ancients characterized this northern principle more exactly and meaningfully by the element of earth. In experimental physics, where it appears at its purest, the relative dominant Infinite in the magnetic axis is called nitrogen; it demonstrates the non-coherent or expansive side of the magnetic line, and forms the nature of earthly air. In general, nitrogen represents the less coherent southern pole of the globe. The ancient inquirers into nature significantly characterized this southern principle of the earth by the element of air. The mass of the earth is formed by neither the one nor the other principle, but by the identity of both. This mass is to be found at its purest and most genuine where the north-south opposition vanishes into the identical nature at its purest, and where the mass as such is most closely
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related to the absolute point of gravity. In this way, this of all earthly things shares most in the immobility of nature, and demon-strates both a maximum of gravity and a maximum of difference in contrast to light— this last by means of its opaqueness as well as through the earthly immortality of its true nature. These are the precious metals, which represent the purest indifference of earth that there is, and which by means of the baser metals approach closer and closer in the opposite direction, to the difference of the south-north principles. In physics, where it occurs most, the relative dominant Finite in the developing line or in electricity, is called oxygen, and it represents the active attractive power on Earth…. In physics, where it appears at its purest, the relative dominant Infinite in the developing line is called hydrogen, and represents the active expansive power on Earth…. The indifference of the relative difference of oxygen and hydrogen is water itself…. Just as there is an indifference which has its opposite against it (whose lowest power is demonstrated by the precious metals and highest by water), so there must also be an indifference of the entire quadruplicity. Through this, what manifests itself by means of the identity of light and gravity as the Absolute, is revealed in nature itself as indifference. That is, a general reconciliation of all differences, an intuition by means of which everything becomes one…. This occurs in warmth. Hence the strange, mystical, never wholly explained nature of warmth; hence its profound relatedness both to gravity and to light. f29 a globe (as the exponent of Gravitation): See 4530 and n. four Poles…Magnetic Poles…and…Electrical Poles: Cf Hansteen’s four geomagnetic poles in 4781 and n. But here the polarities being discussed are chemical and physical, which Steffens connected in the passage quoted above and in the first part of his Beyträge entitled “Beweiss, dass Stickstoff und Kohlenstoff Repräsentanten des Magnetismus im chemischen Process sind”. Yet Coleridge’s use here of the terms Astriction (Astringency?), Appropriative attraction, Dilation, Negative Magnetism, reminds us that his polarities probably began with Böhme; see CN III 4359 and n; also 4456 and n. On positive and negative Electricity see 5248 and n. Lux ligata, fixa, absorpta: “Light bound, fixed, absorbed”. The Combustible…the comburent or combustive: Cf a note Coleridge wrote on a flyleaf of his copy of H.C.Oersted Ansicht der chemischen Naturgesetze, durch die neueren Entdeckung gewonnen (Berlin 1812): All bodies divided chemically into Combustive, Combustible, and Neutral, or Acids, Alkalies, and Salts. But I cannot with my present knowlege of Chemistry see the advantage of this division; and it strikes me as an objection to it, that it confounds the substantiative Forces with the modifying by directing the whole attention to the Latter.
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Was the entry later than the marginal annotation, and did Coleridge come to see a value in the division? (But see a later entry, 5405 and n). He presented his own correlation of substantive and modifying forces in 4555; see also CN III 4420 ff19v-20v. The common base of Hydrogen and Nitrogen: This was a favourite speculation of Davy (T.H.Levere Affinity and Matter 46), dating from as early as 1802 and often returned to over the years. Similar ideas are found in the writings of J.W.Ritter, chemical hero of the Naturphilosophen in Jena, to whom Coleridge referred with respect in TL 57, 71. “plant-like”; εντοµοειδες: “insect-like”; ιδιοξώικον: “peculiar to f29v animals”. On these terms see 4862, 4886, 5446 and nn. In these diagrams VIII and IX, though the terms were widely used in the literature of Naturphilosophie, it is likely, in the context of the argument here, that Coleridge was thinking in particular of Steffens Grundzüge 71: Tr: Sensibility, irritability and the faculty of reproduction are real neither with respect to the total organization, nor to the undivided spheres of the organism; the reality is the identity of them all. For an elaboration of this part of Coleridge’s scale of powers, see TL 59: “reproduction, corresponding to magnetism, irritability to electricity, and sensibility to constructive chemical affinity”. See also ibid 93. Throughout this entry, a comparison with the scheme in CN III 4226 is useful. A new, higher & heterogeneous principle…must descend: More fully explained in 5150, where the same quotation from Gen 1:26 is referred to. the completing & unifying Decad: Cf CN in 4420 fI9v and n. f30 Gravitation…Light…Integral Bodies: Gravitation and light were included by Coleridge to facilitate his philosophical exegesis of Genesis I. See CN III 4418, 4420 and nn, and 4556 and 4558 below. The insertion of gravitation and light between VI and VII at least as a Corollary to the VIth enabled Coleridge to make the transition between Ideal and Cosmic (potentially substantive) powers, and at the same time to preserve his Decad. The co-inherence or perfect Union of the Powers of Light and Gravitation can only be realized as the Sun, or Central Body of a System: Cf Steffens Grundzüge 28: “The representative of the union of gravity and light is the Sun”. Light in the serυice of Gravitation is Color: See also 4855, 5144, 5290, 5446 and nn. Cf Steffens Grundzüge 53: Tr: As oxygen and hydrogen indicate the degree of divergence under the power of gravity, so colours indicate the degree of divergence under the power of light, in such a way that the red side of the prismatic pattern shows the oxydisable side, that is, the side diverging to the East, while on the other hand the violet side shows the de-oxydisable side, that is, the side diverging towards the West. Anything on Earth present with a minimum of divergence under the power of gravity, demonstrates its differentiation from light by reflection as brightness; what represents a maximum of divergence demonstrates the identity with light by transparency; the colours oscillate between both. Where in the course of
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oscillation the East-West line momentarily has the upper hand to a maximum degree, the Eastern principle bursts forth as flame under the power of light, and the Western principle bursts forth as water under the power of gravity; and after this process of indifferentiation, the divergent body reverts more or less to the scheme of the line. Sound is volatile Metal…the Soul of Metal: Cf sleeps in the metal 4984 f89v; see also 4843 ff118–117v and n; and the letter to Tieck [4 July 1817] CL IV 750–51, and the one to Tulk Sept 1817 CL IV 771, 773; also the annotations on Böhme Works I I 43: CM I. f30v Call the principles akin to Light, Oxygen, Chlorine, &c, photöid: Steffens Grundzüge 53 indicated a correlation between colour and the power of light, which (ibid 41) corresponds to the W-E polarity. Now oxygen is E, hydrogen W (47–8), and thus there is a relation between the power of light W-E and the oxydisability of substances corresponding to the same degree and orientation of power. Oxygen, chlorine &c, being strong supporters of combustion, i.e. East, are also strongly under the Potenz der Schwere (“power of gravity”). Coleridge’s argument here is close to Steffens’s (but cf 5155). According to Lavoisier’s chemistry, supporters of combustion like oxygen were rich in caloric (see 5144), but Davy and Beddoes at the turn of the century both considered that such substances were rich in light. Davy accordingly called oxygen gas “phosoxygen”. Coleridge at that time (1799) surely learned of these speculations from one or other of their authors. photöid is not in OED (but phytoid is). It is equivalent to akin to light, From τò “the light-resembling [principle]”. Coleridge may have invented the Greek word also, rather than acquired it from e.g. Plotinus; cf this entry above (f29v) and 4886 above for similarly constructed words, and πνροειδες in CN III 4244. double Attraction: This is a technical term for the play of forces of affinity in e.g. double decomposition; it was used e.g. by Thomas Beddoes in his translation of T.O.Bergman, A Dissertation on Elective Attractions (1785) 18. in real Things, all the primary Powers are present in each Thing… DCBA. &c &c: Cf CN III 4420 f19v: “There are four ideal Elements: pure Carbon, pure Azote, pure Oxygen, and pure Hydrogen….” Steffens Grundzüge 58 makes a similar point: “The whole quadruplicity is active in any chemical process.” f31 Gas Lights in the London Shops: The Gas Light and Coke Company, chartered in 1812, provided the first public supply of gas in 1813. Lighting in shops, taverns, and large houses became a public service about this time. f31v Who ever attended a first course of Chemical Lectures: Coleridge recorded his own excitement at Davy’s first public lectures in the Royal Institution in CN I 1098, 1099. The particular chemists he refers to here all appear in various entries in this volume, except James Parkinson; he compiled The Chemical Pocket-Book; or Memoranda Chemica: Arranged in a Compendium of Chem-istry: With Tables of Attractions, &c. Calculated as well for the Occasional Reference of the Professional Student, as to supply others with a General Knowledge of Chemistry (1799). There is in the BM a copy of the second edition (1801) with the names “H.Medlock J.H.Beech STC” on the title-page. It is doubtful that the initials are in Coleridge’s hand. There is one MS note, not by him.
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James Parkinson’s more interesting work, Organic Remains of a former World (3 vols 1804, 1808, 1811) was the first modern attempt at palaeontology in English; its approach was through chemistry and mineralogy, and Coleridge could have associated it with the works of others he mentions. Parkinson would have been to him an attractive expositor, for he was a rather Beddoes-like character, interested (a surgeon) in the health of the poor and of children, and with views sufficiently radical socially to be a member of the London Corresponding Society in 1795, and to write in vindication of it. He did much original research, including a paper on “the shaking palsy”, which came to be named Parkinson’s Disease. (Shakespear’s) Theseus: A Midsummer Nights Dream V i. so Water and Flame, the Diamond, the Charcoal: See CN I 1098 f28v and above, 4751. (Turn to the Friend. V. III. p. 174.): This is in truth, the first charm of chemistry, and the secret of the almost universal interest excited by its discoveries. The serious complacency which is afforded by the sense of truth, utility, permanence, and progression, blends with and enobles the exhilarating surprise and the pleasurable sting of curiosity, which accompanies the propounding and the solving of an enigma. It is the sense of a principle of connection given by the mind, and sanctioned by the correspondency of nature. Hence the strong hold which in all ages chemistry has had on the imagination. If in SHAKSPEARE we find nature idealized into poetry, through the creative power of a profound yet observant meditation, so through the meditative observation of a DAVY, a WOOLLASTON, or a HATCHETT:
——By some connatural force, Powerful at greatest distance to unite With secret amity things of like kind, we find poetry, as it were, substantiated and realized in nature—yea, nature itself disclosed to us,…as at once the poet and the poem. The Friend (CC) I 471. f32 only by meeting with, so as to be resisted by, another does the Soul become a Self: See CN I 1679; CN III 4007, 4186, 4632, 5115 f110, 5280 f10v foll f32v αυτοπατωρ, αυτουιος: Of the Greek Platonists using this phrase, Coleridge could be thinking of Iamblichus De Mysteriis 8.2 where the words have the meanings he adumbrates. “There is one God who is before those things which truly have being, and before the principles of universals, even prior to the first God and King; he abides unmoved in the solitude of his oneness, for neither does the intelligible nor any other mingle with him; he is established as model for the godhead which is its own father and its own offspring and is truly good.” But cf also Chap XII BL (CC) I 285–6 and CN III 4189 where similar quotations from Synesius Hymn III (υar) appear.
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See also on this theme of generation—constituent power→ product→ function; the Father→ the Son 5248 where the transfer to the physics of production is also made in terms of attraction+repulsion, gravity, electricity, and the interpenetrating of powers. See also 4538 and n. Magnetism, Electricity and Galυanism: See 4974 and n. neither+nor−E[lectricity] acts by itself…they penetrate into the Depth—become Galvanic: This is the final stage in Schelling’s construction of matter as in 4974 and n. See 4639 f22v, 4640 f23 and nn; also 4515, 5167 and nn. 4930 25.68 Coleridge here turned his notebook around to use the pastedown on the back cover, i.e. f141, a small space having been left at the top of it when he wrote CN III 4327, and several other pages which he now filled. The book, already having been used from the other end, ff141–92υ (for entries 25.69–25.94 in CN III 4327–4331, 3589–3607, 3421–3422), Coleridge c 1817 renumbered 93 pages, (then blank) from the back, so that some of them bear two page numbers. The pencilled entry provides an unusual scrap of record-keeping. To follow Coleridge’s list of numbers of Blackwood’s: No 42: (Sept 1820) VII 628–31: Identified on the Contents page as “Note from Mr Morris, enclosing a Letter from Mr Coleridge on the Sorts and Uses of Literary Praise”, the note was signed “Peter Morris”, pseudonym for J.G.Lockhart; the Letter 629–31 (not in CL), begins with phrases that establish, if evidence were needed, the autobiographical character of entry 5435. No 31: (Oct 1819) VI. The October number in 1819 contained no article designated as Coleridge’s, either in the Table of Contents or by signature, nor does anything in this number appear to have been written by him. The first article is the Third of a series of “Essays on the Lake School of Poetry”, and is about Coleridge (3–12) by [?Lockhart]. It is laudatory, especially of the Ancient Mariner and Christabel. No 56: (Oct 1821) X 243–62 “Letter from Mr Coleridge. Selection from Mr. Coleridge’s Literary Correspondence with Friends and Men of Letters”. Letter I From a Professional Friend [signed] J.L.; Letter II In Answer to the Above (largely on words, subject and object, etc); Letter III To Mr. Blackwood. Letter Iv To a Junior Soph, at Cambridge. Letter v to the Same. For reasons unexplained the only one of these Coleridge letters to appear in CL is Letter III: CL V 166–71. No 32: (Nov 1819) VI 196 Fancy in Nubibus, a Sonnet composed on the Sea Coast; 197–8 “Character of Sir Thomas Brown as a Writer”. This article, sent with a letter to the Editor signed G.J.[James Gillman], was originally an annotation on Thomas Browne. See CM under Browne. No 50: (Jan 1822) XI 3–13: Sundry Select Chapters from the Book of the Two Worlds, Translated from the Original ESOTERIC into the Language of the Border Land: Comprizing the Historie and Gests of MAXILIAN, agnominated COSMENCEPHALUS, and a CousinGerman of SATYRANE, the ICONOCLAST—a very true Novel founded on Acts, aptly divided and diversely digested into Fyttes, Flights, Stations (or landingplaces) Floors and Stories— Complete in Numeris, more or less. The title is followed by two mottoes and this heading:
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Epistle Premonitory for the Reader; but contra-monitory and in reply to Dick Proof, Corrector. This article is not undersigned but is attributed to “Mr Coleridge” in the table of contents and says in a concluding editorial note: [We must take MR COLERIDGE as he chooses to offer himself. We certainly expected to have had a great deal more of this article for the present Number, when we sent the MS. to our Printer; but we suppose it may very safely be taken for granted that nobody will complain of us for opening our monthly sheets with a fragment indeed—but such a fragment as we are sure nobody but Mr Coleridge could have written. In case there should be any reader of ours unfortunate enough never to have read Mr Coleridge’s FRIEND, we strongly advise him to betake himself to that singular Storehouse of scattered genius, and make himself master of the beautiful letters in which the early history of Idoloclastes Satyrane’s mind is displayed. He will then come with infinitely more advantage to the Historie and Gests of Maxilian, and their rich Prologomena. Mr Coleridge will be behaving himself “something amiss”, if we have not the continuation of these “Select Chapters” ere next month. C.N.] 4931 25.103 Nöus and Antinöus: a dialogue: From f100v (What do you call Mysticism) down to f99v (merits the name of Fanaticism), the material here was incorporated var in AR Conclusion 381–2. See also on Mysticism C&S (CC) 165–6. The whole entry, omitting cancellations and with some minor editorial doctoring, was published with annotations by EHC in The Monthly Packet or Evening Readings for Members of the English Church ed Charlotte M.Yonge and Christabel R.Coleridge N.S. II (Jul-Dec 1891) 377–85. EHC speculated on the identity of Antinöus, inconclusively, translating the Greek word as “of different mind” adding, “but here it must stand for the natural and common as opposed to or compared with the enlightened reason”. He dated the dialogue 1817–23. f101v the Whole Duty of Man: A popular devotional work first published in 1658 and sometimes attributed to Richard Allestree, as well as to various other 17th-century authors. It contains severely authoritarian ethical injunctions, and went through 23 editions between 1659 and 1714. See CN III 3785 and n. outlandish: punning on the German ausländisch, “foreign”. f101v Fluxions…Calculus…Leibnitz: See 4775 and n. Landen initiated an analysis of mathematical functions carried further by Lagrange. Landen: John Landen (1719–90) published two works on The Residual Analysis: A New Branch of the Algebraick Art (1758) and (1763). He tried to substitute a purely algebraic system for the calculus of fluxions. He was not Scottish, but a native and resident of Northamptonshire. Le Grange: Joseph-Louis Lagrange (1736–1813), one of the great original mathematicians of all time, wrote a Théorie des fonctions analystiques (1797) and Leçons
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sur le calcul des fonctions (1804). It is not known who affixed the epithet transcendental to either, but he himself thought he had developed the true metaphysics of the calculus. His algebraic, abstract way of regarding functions was prophetic of things to come. Cheerer: EHC referred the expression to [Chap 24 of] Scott’s Guy Mannering. where Dandie Dinmont’s befuddlement in consequence of “twa cheerers” is portrayed. Lee’s rapturous Lines: See CN III 4073n where the six lines are quoted from the Ottery Copy Book, now in VCL, except that iniquity there flows green, not blue, and that Northern S[eas] here are “lees” there. The lines appear to be Coleridge’s anticipation of surrealism in verses facetiously attributed to Nathaniel Lee, but really taking off from some anonymous lines; see The Faber Book of Comic Verse compiled by Michael Roberts (1942) I. Attributed to “Anon 1617” they appeared var in A Nonsense Anthology collected by Carolyn Wells (New York 1902) 16–17. In a letter of 14 Sept 1828 to Isaac Watts, Coleridge referred to his lines as “a pretended fragment from Lee”. f100v Such a man I call a Mystic: As e.g. Jacob Böhme? Swedenborg? In C&S (CC) 165 Heraclitus (cf CN III 4351), Plato, Bacon, and Leibnitz were called “Mystics in the primary sense of the term; Iamblichus and his successors, Phantasts”. f100 ENTHUSIASM: Frequently contrasted with Fanaticism by Coleridge, the main difference being that in his view the former suffers from false images merely, the latter from false feeling; the former tends to the solitary, the latter to association and proselytizing; see CM I, a marginal note on Walter Birch’s Sermon on…Infidelity and Enthusiasm (1818). See also an interesting note on Kant’s “Beobachtungen über das Gefühl des Schönen und Erhabenen” in Inq Sp § 113. f99v Cave of Trophonius: See Lect 2 P Lects (CC) f40 and Ch XIII BL (CC) I 302. Trophonius was a Boeotian god, the oracular god of Lebadea, near Thebes, much reverenced. After an elaborate ceremony, the inquirer was said to be sucked down into a deep underground cave for the revelation; as recounted by Pausanius 39:4, 40, and by Plutarch De genio Socratis: Moralia 590 B foll. f99 Mystes: See also C & S (CC) 165. f98v the Etymon Mυο, µυω, µυσω: Coleridge gives a roman transcription and the future of the verb “to close”; see 4832 f59v and n. f98 µετ’ οµµασι µυοµενοις: As Coleridge translates it, with closed eyes. µετα χειλεσι µυοµενοις: Again Coleridge translates, with closed lips. f96 Dr——who has discovered, that the Mind is a Secretion of the Brain: The references is possibly to William Lawrence Lectures on Physiology, Zoology, and the Natural History of Man, who in his second lecture, at the Royal College of Surgeons in 1818, had advanced a theory of life to which Coleridge objected (see 4518 f93v and n, and TL 34 and passim). In his fourth lecture Lawrence said: The same kind of facts, the same reasoning, the same sort of evidence altogether, which shew digestion to be the function of the alimentary canal, motion of the muscles, the various secretions of their respective glands, prove that sensation, perception, memory, judgment, reasoning, thought, in a word, all the manifestations called mental or intellectual, are the animal functions of their appropriate organic apparatus, the central organ of the nervous system.
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Lectures (1819) 104. f96 Corinthian brass: An alloy of gold, silver, and copper used especially for fine works of art. f95v Sancho Panza…after his return from the Empyrean: Don Quixote Pt II Chap 42 tr Charles Jarvis (1809) IV 38–41. See CN III 4503 and n. f94 Know thyself: Juvenal Satires XI 27; see SM:LS (CC) 79 and n5 for numerous uses by Coleridge of the maxim. The proper Study of Mankind is Man: Alexander Pope An Essay on Man Epistle II lines 1–2. Abraxases: OED gives abraxas as a cabalistic word used as a charm carved on gems—e.g. Warburton’s Divine Legation of Moses II (1738–41) II 158. Cf 4832 f61v and n. 4932 25.104 Bacon’s De augmentis scientiarum Bk I is quoted in this entry, where Coleridge began transcribing from Bacon’s earlier English version Of the Advancement of Learning (Mallet 1740) II 432 and turned from it in distaste to the Latin (Mallet I 43– 4). In the second paragraph he followed Bacon’s Alius error…sectarum, and then substituted, et δογµατων=systems of philosophy, for Bacon’s “atque haeresium veterum”; after obtinuisse he omitted “posthabitis aliis”; after rejectionem he wrote recte et jure instead of Bacon’s “amissis et” before obliteratis; he inserted, as an afterthought, omitted between quam and solidum Bacon’s “quod”, wrote et alte for Bacon’s “atque alte”. He omitted the final sentence in this paragraph and Bacon’s next two paragraphs in toto. Coleridge’s third paragraph takes its first ten words from Bacon (44) but Bacon after intellectus continues: “humani, unde homines abduxere se a contemplatione naturae, atque ab experientia, in propriis meditationibus &c ingenii commentis susque deque voluntates” for which Coleridge substituted quem singuli homines sibi proprium habet; in the next sentence, Coleridge substituted profundis et sanæ mentis for Bacon’s “sublimibus & divinis” before “philosophis”. In the following sentence Bacon reads, for Coleridge’s mundi, “creaturarum”. Some of Coleridge’s alterations in the text seem not very significant. The following translation is taken in part from Bacon’s English version in the Advancement of Learning but with Coleridge’s changes in the Latin—additions or variants—shown in boldface. Alius error…agens: Another error (that hath also some affinity with the former) is a conceit that of all sects and dogmas (=systems of philosophy) after they have been shaken out and ventilated, the best hath still prevailed; so as if a man should begin the labour of a new search, he were but like to light upon somewhat formerly rejected, and by rejection rightly and properly brought into oblivion—as if the multitude or even the wisest for the multitude’s sake, were not ready to give passage rather to that which is popular and superficial than to that which is substantial and deeply rooted.
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Alius error…ascendere: Another error hath proceeded from too great a reverence and a kind of adoration of the mind and understanding which each man has proper to himself. Upon these men of opinion and intellectualists (so to speak) which are (notwithstanding) commonly taken for the most profound and sane philosophers; Heraclitus gave a just censure, saying: “Men sought truth in their own little worlds, and not in the great and common world.” For they disdain the alphabet as it were of nature and the primer book of God’s works, whereas if they did not they might perchance by degrees and slowly, after simple letters and syllables, come at last to ascend to the fluent reading of the text and volume itself of the world. Huic υero…scientiæ: (This precedes the paragraphs above in Mallet’s edition p 44.) Another error is opposed to this one namely that after the distribution of particular arts and sciences into classes men have abolished universality of thought and philosophia prima: which is most destructive of the development of doctrines. Surveys are made from towers and high places; neither is it possible to discover the more remote and deeper parts of any science, if you stand but on the level of that same science. Of the Advancement of Learning: Works (ed Mallet 1740) II 32 υar. A favourite passage; see CN III 3244 and n. accuracy in words…as we have already more than once affirmed: In fact in almost every prose work he wrote: see e.g. below 5388, 5400. et rerum conceptarum et facultatis conceptricis: “both of the things conceived and of the faculty of conception”. The locus classicus for Coleridge’s discussion of Bacon as a British Plato is Essays VIII and IX of the Essays on The Principles of Method in The Friend (CC) I 482–95. intolerant of useless subtlety, and wriggling υermicular cavillations: More vivid than Bacon but based on Of the Advancement of Learning where Bacon wrote that just as there are many good substances which “putrify and corrupt into worms”, so learning may “dissolve into…vermiculate questions” (Mallet II 428); “υermiculatas quaestiones in De Augmentis (Mallet I 40). qui quæstionum minutiis rerum frangunt pondera: Bacon’s phrase for the Schoolmen in De Augmentis (Mallet I 40), and in Of the Advancement (Mallet II 428), where he is applying words used of Seneca. At I 41 he uses the words scrupulos and captiunculas, which Coleridge applied to the Schoolmen. The entry breaks off in mid page and mid sentence. 4933 60.12 Chandlers and Delany’s: Samuel Chandler A Review of the History of the Man After God’s Own Heart (1762) and A Critical History of the Life of David (2 vols 1766) which defend this description of David, despite his serious moral lapses, on the grounds that he was a man who could repent; [Patrick Delany] An Historical Account of the Life and Reign of David, King of Israel (2 vols 1759) also supports this view (against Pierre Bayle) on similar grounds.
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et centum aliorum: “and a hundred others”. as in Jael: Judges 4:15–32 and 5:24–30 give the story of Jael’s murder of Sisera. In Letter IV CIS 43–4 the same criticism of literalist palliators is made, more specifically. a man after God’s own Heart: Acts 13:22, 1 Sam 13:14. f22 a man strictly orthodox: The Hebrew expression in 1 Sam 13:14 is aish kolabobo, “a man after his [God’s] heart”, usually interpreted merely as “pleasing to him/one whom he wished”. For Coleridge’s view that ancient Israel was chiefly a political rather than a moral regime see 4562 and n. Mrs Trimmer’s Sacred History: Mrs [Sarah] Trimmer Sacred History, Selected from the Scriptures; With Annotations and Reflections, Particularly Calculated to Facilitate the Study of the Holy Scriptures in Schools and Families (6 vols) went into many editions. No copy of the 7th has been located; the following is taken from the 8th (1824). In III 142–6, § xxii “A Retrospective View of the Life of King David, as the Man after God’s own Heart”, this expression was applied to David as “one who would never forget that he had received his authority from the Lord, and was bound to govern agreeably to God’s commands”; though he was “a great offender against the moral law”, his penitence and fidelity were what pleased God; basically he was a good man. Mrs Trimmer cited Delany’s Life of David for favourable parallels between David and other heroes of antiquity. 4934 60.13 For Coleridge elsewhere on the descent of languages and of peoples, see also 4693, 4697, 4818, 5136. the Cement: As in 5136 f133v, the inflexions. French…least powerful but most perfect of the modern European languages: A more than usually temperate statement; cf CN III 2598 and n, and The Friend (CC) I 46, II 45. f23 Johnson: On the deterioration of English prose style since Johnson, see CN II 2407; on Coleridge’s tendency to disparage Johnson, see CN III 3321n, 3646. for in the Latin the Eng. yields to the German: A slip for in the latter the English yields to the German? The German is the full-grown Gothic…: Cf Friedrich Schlegel Ueber die neuere Geschichte (Vienna 1811) 138–9, where in his sixth and seventh lectures “Vom deutschen Kaisertum” à propos the earliest literary monument in the Gothic language, Bishop Ulfilas’ translation of the Gospels, Schlegel points out that the Gothic is the foundation of modern German. conquered and here denizened the Latin & Romanesque: Schlegel’s discussion of language (41–150) takes place in the context of the conquest of Rome and the assimilation of Roman culture by the invading Goths. the rough Compeer of the Greek: Schlegel also maintained that in the provenance of vocabulary, structure of words, and elegance of grammar, German shows a more than accidental resemblance to the sophisticated languages of the ancient world—Greek, Persian, and Sanskrit. f23v Steffens & Schlegel make the German and the Scandinavian two kinds: Cf Steffens in Die gegenwärtige Zeit…(Berlin 1817) I 10 Tr: The Scandinavians were ancestrally akin to the Germanic people. Their languages have a common source and the more deeply one is able to get at the earliest steps of their respective development, the more obvious
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the relationship appears…. A puzzling but continuing difference, whose source is to be sought in the first and earliest development, exists in the primitive Germanic and has remained, separating the Scandinavian languages from the German. Schlegel (139), on the whole more tentative in argument than Coleridge makes him out to be, raises the question whether the Gothic language of Ulfilas’ translation is better ascribed to Swedish or to German: Tr: The Swedish, and especially the Scandinavian nation and speech, and the German were originally one and the same. Every document falls exactly in the time when the German nation migrating to more southerly dwellings, cut themselves off from the main stem [i.e. the Germanic], and this led to the development and separation of the German speech, which if I may say so, is at one and the same time a sister and a daughter of the Scandinavian or old Swedish… . Our German speech is recognizably a mixture from two very different dialects, the high German and the Low German. The latter…according to the opinion of all authorities on language, the older, more primitive dialect. while I make the Gothic the Radical: See CN III 4384 f157v; TT 24 Feb 1827; Lect 8 P Lects (CC), f356 foll. For what Coleridge means here by the Radical, see 4866 f59 and n. On his general view of the races of mankind, see 4548, 4668 and nn. A long note on Blumenbach clarifies his approach; see CM I under Blumenbach, a note on the front flyleaves of Über die natürlichen Verschiedenheiten im Menschengeschlechte. Japetic, i.e. those spoken by the descendants of Japheth, the third son of Noah, generally speaking the Indo-Europeans. Marcomanni…Alemanni: Two ancient German tribes of Suevic origin, much in conflict with the Romans until they settled c A.D. 500, the Alemanni in what is now Alsace and N.Switzerland and the Marcomanni in Bavaria. the Celts…perkeltides: The play with the Celts is on protoxides and peroxides, protoxides being chemical compounds with a low oxygen content, peroxides with a high oxygen content. The Franks were in early times proto-Celtides, i.e. slightly contaminated with Gallicism but became in time, as now perkeltides, per-Celts, highly Celticized, their strong German characteristics overlaid by their volatile French ones. Schlegel (120, 124) on the other hand portrayed the Merovingian Franks as contaminated by Roman harshness. Coleridge’s reference to Louis XIV (the Great), who expanded but impoverished France in four aggressive wars, emptied his treasury, drove thousands of Huguenots from France, and is thought by so doing to have created the climate for the French Revolution, is another instance of Coleridge’s way of relating a variety of elements to one another. 4935 21¼.120 The entry seems to be an attempt to link New Testament phraseology to Coleridge’s speculations on Life and Individuation as he did also in 5377. “soul”; also used to differentiate the individualized soul from the more generic essence of being, designated spirit, as in Heb 4:12. See 5377. Here it is used, however, to indicate the natural rather than the spiritual man.
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“sensual wisdom”. St James (3:15) reads in AV: “This wisdom descendeth not from above but is earthly, sensual, devilish”. ανθρωπος ψυχικος: (AV) “natural man”: I Cor 2:14. NEB has “unspiritual”. συνεσις της σαρκος: “wisdom/understanding of the flesh”; not a New Testament phrase, but Coleridge seems to be equating it with the carnal “mind of the flesh” of Rom 8:6–7; cf 4618, 4924 and nn. Vis υitæ: “life Force”. substant…Substans: See 4679, 4886 and nn. formative Nisus: On nisus formativus see CN III 3744n. psychal: “rare” OED, where the first use is dated 1844. Self-consciousness—and the Substans ψυχικον so potentiated becomes truly the Understanding: See also 4679, 4929, 5222, 5243 and nn. And On the Prometheus of Aeschylus: LR II 353–4. Law spoken of by St Paul: Rom 2:14–15, CN in 3744 and 3840nn. Cf 5203. ανθ [ρωπος] πνευµατικο[ς]: “spiritual man”; I Cor 2:15. “devilish ανθρωπος man, devilish wisdom”; James 3:15 (see above). Coleridge altered his word for “devilish”, to use James’s. 4936 23.59 The words could have been written at any time at the top of the page and have no obvious relation to other entries. 4937 29.226 Coleridge had been trying to find funds for DC’s Cambridge education: see above 4593n; also CL IV 755, 951; CL V 54–5, 209, 361 and n, 387, 390, 426–7, 526–9. On 23 April 1823 Coleridge wrote urging Derwent “forthwith” to send the requisite Certificates”. CL V 272. DC was apparently careless, or cavalier; yet he held Exhibitions from both the Goldsmiths and the Mercers Company. He had two halves (£20) from the latter, Nov 1822-Nov 1823. CL V 273n. See also CL V 272–3; see also 361 and nn. 3 for O[xford], 3 for C[ambridge]: The Court Book of the Goldsmiths Company, No 24 for 1821–7, shows that on 16 Oct 1822 the Wardens recommended three new Exhibitions for each of the universities, to be distributed annually in May. Each Exhibition was for a period of five years residence. On the date of Coleridge’s entry the Court met and elected Derwent Coleridge to a Cambridge Exhibition, placing him second of the Cambridge applicants though he had not written; nor does any written nomination from anyone else survive. He entered St John’s. Apparently Derwent did not intend to stay the full five years. A letter from St John’s College (14 Oct 1824) confirmed that Derwent took his BA degree in Jan 1824 upon which he left college and went to be an assistant in a school. See also 5113. The Librarian of the Goldsmiths Company, Miss S.M.Hare, kindly provided the Court records and interpreted them. 4938 29.227 f115 Mr Fowell Buxton…M.P.: Thomas Fowell Buxton, M.P. for Weymouth 1818–37, was a spokesman for prison reform, abolition of the slave-trade, and other philanthropic causes; Coleridge’s objections are to his style, not his aims. His speech of 15 May 1823 required eighteen (uninspiring) columns of Hansard, and was more briefly reported in the daily papers; which account Coleridge was reading here is not known.
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Deisidæmoniac: Not in OED; “god- or demon-fearing”, from the Greek. Canning: George Canning was from 1822 Foreign Secretary in Lord Liverpool’s government. From early days Coleridge’s opinion of him was ambivalent; Pittite, antiJacobin (CN I 567), duellist with Castlereagh (CN III 3608n), but always recognized as a strong debater in the House, by 1822 he had temporarily won some ground with Coleridge by not participating in the attacks on Queen Caroline. But see also 5234 below, and 5402, which repeat some of the moral objections here to Canning’s wontedSophistry. f114v Multiυocal: OED cites Coleridge as the originator of this word in a marginal note on Hooker. See 5398 below. f114 Winch’s Defence…on Bowyer’s Desk: Probably “Billy Winch” whom Lamb mentioned in a letter of 11 Oct 1802 to Coleridge implying that Coleridge had a liking for Winch and that Winch had a way of becoming a culprit. He went out to India as a cadet, became a lieutenant, and as Lamb said, learned “the language, & is thought a clever man. The Rogue was courting his Colonel’s Daughter, when my informer last heard of him. He had not any encouragement from the family…” L Letters (1976) II 78. If this entry describes the cigar episode Lamb referred to in “Christ’s Hospital Five and Thirty Years Ago” (L Works II 14–26), then Coleridge here identifies Lamb’s “droll squinting W” who “having been caught putting the inside of the master’s desk to a use for which the architect had clearly not designed it, to justify himself averred that he did not know the thing had been forewarned”; see 4760 and n. Non meus hic sermo: “These words were not my own”. Quoted by Canning in the debate to introduce his long extract from Dr. Paley: Slavery was a part of the civil constitution of most countries when CHRISTIANITY appeared; yet no passage is to be found in the Christian scriptures by which it is condemned and prohibited. This is true; for Christianity, soliciting admission into all nations of the world, abstained, as behoved it, from intermeddling with the civil institutions of any. But does it follow, from the silence of scripture concerning them, that all the civil institutions which then prevailed were right; or that the bad should not be exchanged for better! Besides this, the discharging of all slaves from all obligation to obey their masters, which is the consequence of pronouncing slavery to be unlawful, would have no better effect than to let loose one-half of mankind upon the other…. The truth is, the emancipation of slaves should be gradual, and be carried on by the provisions of law, and under the protection of civil government. Christianity can only operate as an alternative…. And we trust that, as the knowledge and authority of the same religion advance in the world, they will abolish what remains of this odious institution. Hansard IX (Col 278–80) Canning then went on to argue that the “gradual” abolition of the slave trade should be a political and social end, and should not be pursued on the strength of Christian authority, but by the British Cabinet with all due safeguards on the rights of property (i.e. slaves) and property owners, i.e. that it should be a moral progress with no fixed date, and
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not be done by act of Parliament. Wilberforce replied that it was not unreasonable to expect legislation in the spirit of Christianity from a Christian country like England, but that the colonial governments would never fulfil their promises to abolish the trade (Hansard 22 columns). A very important debate. pluralities: According to a letter to his frien