RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Iceland Idealism
2 vols., Hrappseyae, 1774-75. Consult further: Finnur Johannseus, Hist. eccl. Islandice, 4 vols., Copenhagen, 1772-78; J. Espolin, Islands arbaekur (1263-1832), 12 vols., ib., 1824-55; P. Petursson, Hist, eccl, Islandwe (1740-1840), ib., 1841; P. A. Munch, Det Norske Folks Historie, 6 vols., Christiania, 1852-63; K. Maurer, Die Bekehrung des norweaischen Stammes sum Christentum, 2 vols., Munich, 1855-56; idem, Island von seiner ersten Entdeckung bis zum Untergang des Freistaates, ib., 1874; J. E. W. Sars, Vdsigt over den norske Historie, 4 vols., Christiania, 1873-91; A. D. Jorgensen, Den nordiske Kirkes Grundlo?ggelse, 2 vols., Copenhagen, 1874-76; C. A. V. Conybeare, Iceland; its Place in the Hist, of European Institutions, London, 1877; Letitia M. Maccoll, The Story of Iceland, ib. 1887; Stories of the Bishops of Iceland 1056- 1330, ib. 1895; The Book of the Settlement of Iceland, transl. byT. Ellwood, Kendal, 1898; Le Livredes Islandais dupretre Ari le Savant, Liege, 1898; Bjorn Olsen, Um Kristnitokuna arid 1,000, Reikiavik, 1900; P. Herrmann, Island in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart, Leipsic, 1907.
ICON. See Eastern Church, III., § 6.
ICONOCLASM, ICONOCLAST. See Images and Image-Worship, II., §§ 2-3.
ICONOSTASIS, ai"co-nes'ta-sis: In the Eastern Church, a screen, generally decorated with pictures, which stands before the altar and conceals it. From the first, it was customary in the Christian Church to mark off the bema by rails, but, these being very
low, the altar was not hidden until pillars were placed before it and curtains were used. The iconostasis became more and more frequent as the Greek service increased in symbolism. Thus originated the modern templon, which is generally a latticed screen, more or less gilded, with three doors, the middle and largest of which is called the royal and opens toward the altar. This screen is decorated with pictures, and hence derives its name (Gk. eikonostasis, " picture-place ")• The pictures are usually four in number, one representing the saint in whose honor the church is dedicated; the second representing Mary; the third Christ; and the fourth John the Baptist. They are impressive, are painted on a gold background, are often gorgeously set with jewels or paste, and are brightly illuminated by the lights and lamps placed or suspended before them. The so-called " Painters' Book of Mt. Athos " (2d ed., Athens, 1885) gives technical directions for the production of these screens. Philifp Meyee.
Bibliography: Symeon of Thessalonica, Hepl toS ayiav va-ov, in MPG, civ.; Nicholas of Bulgaria, ica.rrixv"-'i 'eP», Venice, 1681; H. Brockhaus, Die Kunst in den Athos- Klostern, Leipsic, 1891.
IDEALISM.
I. Various Types of Idealism. II. German Idealism.
The Movement Characterized (§ 1). Leibnitz and the Pietists (§ 2). Kant's Transcendentalism (§ 3). Lessing, Herder, and Others (§ 4). Goethe, Schiller, and Others (§ 5).
Earlv Views of Fichte and Schelling
(§ 6). Romanticism (§ 7). Later Views of Fichte and Schelling
(§8). Hegel's System (§ 9). Schleiermacher (§ 10).
Herbart (§11). Schopenhauer (§ 12).l Idealism in the Positive Sciences (§13). III. English and American Idealism. Early Phases (§1). Modern Idealism (§2).
I. Various Types of Idealism: In metaphysics idealism, as the opposite of materialism (q.v.), is the doctrine that ultimate reality is of the nature of mind, or thought-content; in epistemology it is the view that knowledge is merely subjective, i.e., limited to ideas and states of mind. The term is also employed in art, where it denotes an effort to realize the highest types of natural objects by eliminating all defects peculiar to individual specimens. In its popular acceptation idealism represents an imaginative treatment of subjects and a striving after perfection. Plato was the earliest representative of metaphysical idealism. Dissenting from the view of Heraclitus that everything is in a state of flux and flow, he formulated, in the interest of ethics, his doctrine of eternal unchanging ideas. These ideas, or incorporeal essences, exist objectively in a supersensuous world and form the background and basis of the ever-changing phenomenal world. Reality is not inherent in the individual object, as, for instance, a horse or a tree, but in the general idea of horse or tree. The highest idea is the idea of the Good — a self-realizing end.
In modern philosophy at least three kinds of metaphysical idealism are distinguished, viz., subjective idealism, objective idealism, and absolute idealism. The first is represented by Fichte, who found the source of the object, or external world, in a universal subject or ego. Starting with this universal ejro he regarded its antithesis, the nonego, which is created by the ego, as an obstacle
necessary to the realization of the intelligent and ethical self. The ego (not the phenomenal self, but the universal self common to all finite selves) sets up an object as a limit, but only to transcend it, thus giving free play to its own activity. This is done in the successive stages of knowledge, beginning with sensation and ending with moral perception. Fichte 's thought is ethical, and in his view nature exists only as material for the realization of duty. Since his system describes what ought to be, rather than what is, he called it practical idealism. If all limiting non-egos, including that of finitude, could be actually transcended, the universal self then attained to would be God. The term objective idealism may be applied to any system of metaphysics that recognizes a spiritual reality existing independent of a conscious subject (Plato, Leibnitz, Herbart, etc.); but this term has usually been reserved to describe the system of Schelling. By combining Fichte's doctrine of the universal ego with the Spinozistic idea of a neutral basis of all existence, Schelling developed his system of identity. In the Absolute object and subject, the real and the ideal, nature and spirit, are identical. This original undifferentiated unity, which is perceived by intellectual intuition, breaks up into the polar opposites of object and subject, nature and spirit, negative or positive being. Though the subjective and objective phases of being are always coexistent in the phenomenal world, in consciousness there is a preponderance of the subjective, while in nature,
Idealism