YALE
UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

GERMAN RATIONALISM,
IN ITS EISE, PEOGEESS, AND DECLINE.

GERMAN RATIONALISM,

IN ITS EISE, PKOGKESS, MD DECLINE,

IN GELATION TO THEOLOGIANS, SCHOLARS, POETS,
PHILOSOPHERS, AND THE PEOPLE :

A CONTKEBUnON TO THE CHURCH HISTORY OF THE EIGHTEENTH
AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES.

DE. K. E. HAGENBACH,
PROFESSOK OP THEOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF BASLE.
EDITED AND TKAN8LATED BY
KEV. WM. LEONHARD GAGE,
AND
EEV. J. H. W. STUCKENBERG.

EDINBURGH:
T. & T. CLAEK, 38 GEOEGE STEEET.
LONDON : HAMILTON, ADAMS, & CO. DUBLIN : JOHN EOBERTSON Sc CO.

MDCCCLXV.

CONTENTS.

{Chapters I. to XIII inclusive, and Chapter XXIV. are translated bn Mr. Oage: Chapters XIV. to
XXIII. indiisive, by Mr. Stucken^erg.] PAGE
INTEODUCTION BY THE TEANSLATOES, . . . xi

Characteristics of the Eighteenth Century. — Toleration and Eeligious
Indifference. — The Decadence of the Ecclesiastical Spirit. — The
Eeformation the common property of Christians, and speculative •
Eadicalists. — The True Standard of Appeal in all Eeligious Mea
surements, . . .....

II.
A brief survey of the Eise of Eationalism in Germany, . . 5
III.
Life and Manners in Germany during the first half of the Eighteenth
Century, as pictured in the reign of Frederick William the First of
Prussia, ........ 12
IV.
PIETISM AND ITS OPPONENTS.
Strife between the Lutherans and the Calvinists. — The philosopher
Wolf: a sketch of his career; his banishment from Halle and his
recall. — His system in its real theological relations. — Later develop
ment of Pietism, its excellent influences during the wars of Frederick
the Great and its subaequent decline, .... 29

vi CONTENTS. V.
THE PIONEEES OF RATIONALISM. PAGE
Rationalism defined.— Deism and Naturalism.— Bolingbroke.— Voltaire.
Diderot.— D'Alembert.—MaterJalism.— Helvetius.— Baron von Hol-
bach.— Sentimentalism.— J. J. Rousseau.— Maria Huber.— Deism in
French and English literature, . . . 42
VI.
Frederick the Great and his Age, . . 57
VII.
THEOLOGICAL SCIENCE, INCLUDING BIBLICAL CRITICISM IN THE
FIRST HALF OP THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
State of theological science. — Biblical criticism. — Wettstein. — Advance
after him. — Michaelis. — Mosheim. — Ernesti. — Semler, . . 71
VIII.
LESSING.
The Wolfenbiittel Fragments. — Dispute with Giitze. — Relation of the
Bible to Christianity. — Lessing's Nathan. — The Education of the
Human Eace. — A few words of Lessing's father, . . .81
IX.
INFIDELITY CARRIED TO ITS FARTHEST ISSUES.
The period of " enlightenment " in Germany. — Basedow and his Educa
tional Reform. — Nicolai and his Eeview. — The diffusion of Science
in popular works. — Aim at general utility. — ^Benjamin Franklin. —
Morality in the Pulpit. — Rationalism in its influence on Hymnology
and Eeligious Services. — New versions of the Bible. — F. A. Bahrdt,
the Theodore Parker of Germany, . . .97
X.
THOROUGH-GOING PROTESTS AGAINST INFIDELITY.
Two Parties, those who would concede all non-essentials and those who
would concede nothing.— The ablest contenders for orthodox doc
trine not the clergy but men of science. — Euler the mathematician,
and his defence of Christianity. —Albert von Haller the physiologist.
Gellert the poet, . . , . .111

CONTENTS. Vll
XI.
HALF-WAY EATIONALISM.
PAGE
The half-way Eationalists. — Efforts to compromise between the orthodox
aud the sceptics. — Concessions to the opponents of Christianity. —
Jerusalem. — Spalding. — -ZoUikofer. — The ending of all these efforts
in the thoroughgoing Deism of Teller. — The Edict of Government to
check the growth of Infidelity. — Its futile results. — Bengel and his
work, . . .... 116
XII.
ZINZENDORF THE POUNDER OP THE MOEAVLiNS.
Allusion to his biographers. — His youth aud marriage. — Christian David
— ^Founding of the Moravian colony at Herrnhut. — Zinzendorf's
journeys, fortunes, death, and burial. — Sketch of his personal ap
pearance. — Extent of his labours and influence. — His character and
mental constitution. — His theological views of Christ, of the atone
ment, and of the bible. — His poetry. — Zinzendorf as an organizer :
this his main strength. — Eelation of the brotherhood to the Church, 128
XIII.
Swedenborg, Heinrich Stilling, and Lavater, the Mystics, . . 154
XIV.
JOHN GODFREY HERDER.
Herder till his appointment in Buckeburg. — Goethe on Herder. — Herder
in his official labours in Buckeburg. — The Countess Maria. — Herder's
literary labours. — Call to Weimar. — His literary climax. — Journey
to Italy. — His death characteristic of Herder. — His great mental
powers and vivacity. — Humanity; its relation to Christianity aud
Protestantism. — Herder as a theologian. — Human mode of viewing
the Divine. — Herder's poetic view of the world. — Sketch of a journey.
—Herder's Christianity. — His theological convictions and theological
character. — His views on theology and the ministry. — Herder as a
preacher. — His talent for religious poetry. — Herder's position in re
ference to Protestantism. — His Conservative tendency. — Strict views
of Church discipline and freedom of the press. — His position in re
ference to philosophy, .... .166

viii CONTENTS.
XV.
IMMANUEL KANT.
PAGE
Sketch of his Hfe.—" Critique of the'Pure Eeason."— Position of this
philosophy in reference to Christianity.— The rapid increase of
Kantism.— Herder's position in reference to the Kantian philosophy, 212
XVI.
SCHILLER.
Schiller and his relation to Christianity. — His relation to Protestantism, 231
XVII.
SALZMANN, CAMPE, PESTALOZZI, HAMANN, AND CLAUDIUS.
Changes in Educational views. — Salzmann, Campe, Pestalozzi and his
relation to Christianity. — Influence of Pestalozzianism on the re
ligious mode of thinking. — Hamann : Sketch of his life, and extracts
from his works. — Claudius, the Wandsbeck messenger, • . 254
XVIII.
FREDERIC WILLIAM JOSEPH SCHELLING.
Schelling and the " Naturphilosophie." — Pantheism and seeming ortho
doxy, . ....... 281
XIX.
FREDERIC HENRY JACOBI.
Jacobi and the religion of the heart in opposition to orthodoxy and specu
lation, . ... ... 291
XX.
JOHN GOTTLIEB FICHTE.
Fichte till his appointmentas professorin Jena  TheFichtean idealism. 
Charge of atheism.— Fichte in Berlin. — Eeturn to the religious stand
point.—" Directions for a blessed life."— Fichte's last days and
death, . . . . . . . . 299 '

CONTENTS. ix

XXI.

RICHTER, GOETHE, AND NOVALIS. PAGE
Tendencies in polite literature corresponding to those of Schelling and
Jacobi. — Jean Paul Eichter. — Goethe's connection with Schelling's
system. — Comparison between Schiller and Goethe in reference to
their relation to Christianity. — Goethe's influence. — His position in
reference to Protestantism. — Novalis, .... 327

XXII.
SCHLEIERMACHER.
New impulse given to protestantism by Schleiermaeher. — " Monologues
and addresses on religion." — Modern protestant theology. — Schleier
maeher, De Wette, &c.— Schleiermacher's " System of Doctrine." —
ParaUel between Herder and Schleiermaeher, . ¦ . 350
XXIII.
HEGEL AND HIS SUCCESSOES.
Hegel : his philosophy, and other tendencies of our day. — Eight and left
side of his philosophy. — Strauss.- Feuerbach and Bruno Baur. —
Other philosophical tendencies. — Modern science, and the present
theology. — Practical Christianity of our day. — Modern pietism, . 363

XXIV.
THE RISE OF THB PROTESTANT SPIEIT IN THE ROMAN CATHOLIC
CHUECH DURING THE PAST AND PRESENT CENTURIES.
Pachasius Quesnel. — The appellants and the convulsionists. — The Jesuits
in Paraguay. — Disbanding of theorder. — GonganeUi.-TheHluminati.
— Joseph II. and his reforms.— The French revolution.— The theo-
philanthropists. — Buonaparte and the papal agreement. — St. Martin
and Chateaubriand.— Napoleon's treatment of Pius VIL— New agree
ments with the pope. — The restoration of the Bourbons.— Ee-estab-
lishment of the Jesuits. — Lamennais.— German Catholicism and its
representatives. — Eelation of Catholicism to Protestantism at the
most recent period. — Glances into the future. — Conclusion. . 381
APPENDIX A, ¦ • .399
APPENDIX B, . . • • .402

EEEATA.
Page 256, line 1,/or Schripfeuthal, read Schnepfenthal.
„ 280, „ 30, /or characteristic, rea(f characterization.
„ 383, „ 5 in poetry, delete comma after freudigen.
„ 333, „ 20 do. for Gift-ward, read Giftward.
„ 336, „ 6, /or "Wanderjahren," reac?" Wanderjahre."

INTEODUCTION.

Prof. Hagenbach of Basle is so well known to the theologians
of Great Britain and America, through his widely circulated
History of Doctrines, that the editors of this volume do not
need to speak at any length of his learning, his candour, his
piety, his soundness in doctrine, his thoroughness, and his
graceful style. In Germany he is even more widely known
than abroad. Though a professor in a Svriss University, his
lectures are delivered in the German language, and are issued
from the publishing houses of Leipsig. All his works have
passed through repeated editions, and in introducing this one,
we are but putting the reader of English in possession of a
volume which has long been a standard in Switzerland and
Germany. The first book which Prof Tholuck of Halle puts
into the hand of a young man who wishes to become
acquainted with the history, present condition, and future
hopes of the cause of Christ in its relation to the philosophy,
scholarship, and poetry of Germany is this work of Hagen
bach. With the advice of Prof Tholuck, and under the sanction
of the author, the editors have abridged this work, omitting
matter which was of comparatively little interest in Great
Britain and the United States. And we would take occasion
to deprecate in behalf of the abridged translation, a charge of
one-sidedness, as though the development of Rationalism in
Germany had been made much more prominent in this than
in the original edition. Though the title of the work has
been HteraUy retained, still it is to be honestly confessed that
the Church History of both of Dr. Hagenbach's volumes is
largely and almost exclusively confined to Germany and
Switzerland. France has but a little corner assigned to it :

xii INTRODUCTION.
Great Britain still less ; the United States none at all. We
have excluded the Swiss portions almost entirely ; they were
of unquestioned interest to the students of that Swiss Uni
versity, before whom these Lectures were read ; they have
less interest to readers in Germany, and almost none to the
outside world, engrossed with affairs on a much larger scale.
We have retained the names of all those men in the depart
ments of theology, philosophy, literature, and poetry, who
made the eighteenth century the Augustan age of Germany,
and who ushered in and accompanied a good way on its
course this nineteenth century, whose results have been less
in Germany than in Great Britain and France, in relation to
the eighteenth. The entire progress of the Rationalistic
movement in Germany, from the importation by way of
France of the light, frivolous and blasphemous scepticism of
Bolingbroke, to the closing of the sad procession in the dis
cords and utter confusion which followed the death of Hegel,
resulting in the re-enthronement of the old "faith once delivered
to the saints " in the leading pulpits and universities of that
land, has been fuUy portrayed. The work of combining
scattered passages, of omitting, of condensing, has been so re
sponsible and so difficult, that it is a great satisfaction to see
before us as we virrite, this line from the author's pen, "I am
entirely satisfied with the condensed work, the plan of which
you have laid before me.''
The period embraced in these sketches is one of stirring liter
ary, theological and philosophical activity, full of strife and
revolutions in all departments of learning. In the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries the Protestant church had spent
most of its energies in fixing its doctrines, and defending
itself against the attacks of Catholicism. In the eighteenth
century, when its doctrines were established, when the perse
cutions of the Catholics nearly ceased, and when the Evan
gelical Church had acquired strength of number, the peace it
enjoyed gave it an opportunity of reflecting on itself, of
criticising and developing its dogmas. It is uot at all sur
prising that the mind which had been fettered should go too
far when it regained its freedom. It is always very difficult
to keep the right proportion between reflection and faith, and

INTEODUCTION. XUl
almost impossible when the one has been cultivated in a one
sided manner, while the other has been almost entirely
neglected. The questions that have occupied the minds of evangelical
Christians since the commencement of last century are mostly
such as have arisen in the Protestant Church itself During
this period the beautiful tree of Protestantism has been little
disturbed by storms from without, but many poisonous
branches have been grafted on "it which haye borne much
pernicious fruit, and poisonous vines have twined around it,
sometimes being so luxuriant and numerous as almost
entirely to hide the tree itself, with its foliage and fruit. A
hasty glance will satisfy us that in this period the most vari
ous elements have been thrown together. In these the mind
has been working, attempting to remove those that would
not mingle with the rest, and exerting all its energies to
form a system, complete, united, and harmonious. The most
prominent of these elements, all of which have more or less
asserted their claims to predominance, were — an Orthodoxy
clinging tenaciously to the dogma, but dead in its idolatrous
worship of the letter and buried in the stony sepulchre of
cold forms ; a Pietism full of life and zeal, but caring less for
confessions and the cultivation of sound learning; the so-
called enlightenment, imported about the middle of last
century from the English Deists and French Encyclopedists,
with its cultivation of the understanding, but neglect of the
heart, accepting the clear, but rejecting the symbolical, the
mystical and divine ; a Rationalism, making morality the
centre of religion, and searching chiefly for it in the Bible,
but losing sight of the deeper truths of the Gospel ; a
Mysticism lost in the depth of its feeling, and hearkening
only to the divine voice, whose whispers it thought might be
heard in the inmost recesses of the soul, and a Pantheism
uniting into one stupendous whole Spirit and matter, God
and nature, and finding in its One and All the acme of its
speculation. In these tendencies, as in history in general,
there are certain individuals elevated above the rest, who
may be regarded as the leaders of their respective parties and
the mirrors in which the systems and ages are reflected. To
study these representative men is to study the systems in

xiv INTEODUCTION.
their practical workings and the ages in their greatest signi
ficance. The title of this work indicates, that the Church History
of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries is regarded from
the side of Evangelical Protestantism. It is so important
that the significance of the last two words be perceived, that
we are constrained to dwell on them at more length than
would be required, were there not a greatly perverted use of
the word Protestantism largely prevalent in our current liter
ature. When Luther and the Reformers inaugurated Protestantism,
their mission was to lay again for all time the foundation-
stone of Christianity, to reaffirm its fundamental doctrine, viz.,
that the Woed of God is the ultimate object of appeal in all
religious questions, the umpire in all ecclesiastical contentions.
The Romish Church had drifted to the placing of the decisions
of popes and councils above the simple meaning of the Bible,
as received and interpreted by the private judgment of every
man. Protestantism protested against this, and demanded
with all urgency and importunity that the Bible alone, with
out note or comment, should be placed at the command of
every child of God. And this was all : here its demand
stopped. Protestantism as a positive force, as not a merely
negativing movement, but a living truth, finds its limit at the
Word of God. That is its rock-bound barrier. It comes to
its legitimate goal when it touches this Bible. This Luther
made a first principle : this remains a first principle of Pro
testantism : and this it must remain.
This we affirm in denial of the statement made in some
quarters, that Protestantism finds its final and legitimate issue
in the most remote pushing of the human mind, unchecked
even by the limits of the Divine Word. The right of private
judgment, according to this statement, is independent of the
limitations of Scripture. Protestantism, according to this,
begins at the point where it begins in its protest against
Romanism, but it runs on and on, claiming as its divine right
the unqualified power of the mind to discern all truth.
Among many who have no ecclesiastical relations, and who
belong in every strict use of language to the " world " this
opinion is prevalent, vague indeed and unexpressed, yet subtle

INTEODUCTION. XV
and destructive, and which when formed and uttered will
bring danger to church and world alike. Our current litera
ture is largely tinctured with this novel and untrue usage of
speech, and Protestantism has been aUowed to protest and
protest, to annul this and disallow that, to strike out point
after point, doctrine after doctrine, article after article, tiU it
has been lost in the fathomless abysses of blank, inconsolable
infidelity. The pillar which Luther and the Reformers set
has been subtly undermined, the pedestal has been riven, and
year by year corners have been taken away, till at last we
need to come back to see how great the loss has been. And
here is where the author of this work takes his stand, with
Luther and the Reformers, that Protestantism has certain
definite and assigned limits, and that the Bible, the old
honoured, everlasting Word of God, is one of those Umits,
bidding the reason of man come thus far but no farther ;
giving scope indeed for the highest powers in studying it, in
opening its obscurities, blending its harmonies, making its
discords accordant, and developing its infinite resources.
If any one were to ask what is the great advantage of going
to Germany to study theology 1 what can one gain there that
he cannot gain at home ? we should answer that it is the
power of seeing the closed issue of problems now working out
with us. The sceptical spirit arose in England, passed thence
to France and thence to Germany : the more reverential deists
of England, Morgan and Tyndal, and the brilliant but earnest
Hobbes gave place to the Ught and trifling school of Bohng
broke and his dissipated compeers. To England comes just
then, to complete his education and to travel, the young and
witty Francois Arouet, whom we best know by the self-im
posed name which he assumed in manhood, a name so dreaded
and feared when he lived, and for years after, but which has
lost its power now. To England comes this witty, sarcastic,
trifling, keen, and handsome young man, and sits at the feet
of the wild, reckless, profligate, superficial and accompUshed
Bolingbroke, the representative of EngUsh deism. The
Frenchman returns to his own land, takes the name so weU
known, pubUshes his imported EngUsh dqiism, and his nation
kindle at once, and France was fiUed with infidelity. There
sprang up like flame the school of Rousseau, d'Holbach, and

XVI INTRODUCTION.
the Encyclopedists, their rank, poisonous blasphemy brought
from England by that brilUant Voltaire. But not content
with sowing the seeds of unbelief among his own countrymen,
not content with the thrifty crop that sprang into fruitage
under his own eye, he carries it to a new field, becomes the
daily companion of the King of Prussia, and the admired
head of the culture of Germany. The king set the fashion of
infidehty, and thousands foUowed in it, and there began the
unbelief of that land, carried by this subtle man from England
from London, by way of Paris to Berlin. Never did the
devil employ an ambassador more potent, effective, and
destroying than this briUiant, watchful, untiring Voltaire.
Thus in France all rotten, and Waiting for any change
which should not be death, and in Germany where the
great Frederick gave eclat to unbelief by the very briUiance of
his military genius, the advance of a superficial deism was as
rapid as the course of light. In England it was not so:
Bolingbroke was too profligate, too light, too triffing, too
evidently a mere briUiant writer, too clearly devoid of scholar
ship or earnest love of truth, to gain much influence over
the solid Enghsh mird. Hence it accompUshed little there ;
and it is only in our day that England has gone to Germany
again to borrow what has there run through its course and
been discarded, giving not only to its uneducated miUions but
to its educated thousands and to hundreds of the ministers of
its own establishment those ideas, which this book will shew
have all had their day in Germany. And in America scepti
cism did not begin till Thomas Jeflerson brought it in from
France, taking the virus which Voltaire carried thither from
England, innoculating the veins of the American national Ufe,
even shutting the name of God out of the constitution of the
United States, and leaving no trace in the great Organic Law
of the nation, that it is even nominaUy a Christian people.
Hence a cycle has been traversed in Germany, while in
Great Britain and America it is incomplete. Hence what is
tendency here has become fulfilment there. We are now
where they were in the past century. It is thrillingly interest
ing to discover while exploring the history of religion and
irreUgion in Germany during the eighteenth century, that
we are foUowing in Unes which there came to their issue.

INTEODUCTION. XVll
utterly without profit, excepting to warn us. Changing the
names of men, it would seem to be but history renewing itself.
There we can see the gradual growth of evU, seductively
blandishing the world, enlisting the sympathy of all who
were not resolutely good, and at last startling the world as a
full grown monster of wickedness. Movements which we
think entirely safe, and which we deprecate in the mUdest
language, there became the gravest perils resulting in a very
gospel of lewdness. The sure growth of great evUs from little
ones, the certainty that where wrong is, there is death, ulti
mate death, is nowhere more clearly pictured than in the
history of the rise of the infidel spirit in Germany during the
last century. The end of all was that in the very land of
Luther, Protestantism, beginning where he placed it, the
right of private judgment to interpret the Bible was lost sight
of, and the word was forced at last to mean the right of
private judgment to decide absolutely on the ways and wiU
of God. Protestantism protested the Bible out of sight and
hearing. When Dr. Tholuck was appointed Professor in the
great University of Halle, where there were hundreds of
students preparing to enter the ministry, he could find but
one who ever read the Bible for devotional purposes, and his
own house was attacked, his windows broken, and he himself
rudely treated in the streets, because he beUeved in the Scrip
tures as the word of God. In the beginning of this century
the work of infidelity had been so thorough going, that the
Bible and evangeUcal reUgion, represented by a handful of
true souls, had arrayed against them the three great worlds,
of Uterature, education and art. Most unnatural divorce !
Those divine gifts which ought to iUumine and illustrate each
other, were rudely sundered ; the " faith once deUvered to the
saints " was compacted in a Uttle isolated body, whUe poetry,
philosophy, scholarship, educational science, music, and aU art
either ignored it or ridiculed it, or assaUed it. The Bible had
been protested out of aU knowledge of men, out of aU the
domain of culture or breeding, or forceful thought.
Great minds then tried to deal single-handed with religion.
Without the Bible as their chart, they ventured out into the
dim void, and felt their own way. With their own unaided
eyes, they tried to " find out the Almighty to perfection." It

xviii INTRODUCTION.
does not seem an overstatement of language to say that aU
that the human mind can do to explore the domain of^ God,
was done by them. There was a race of intellectual giants ;
men of the loftiest powers. They followed each other, each
taking the work which had been bequeathed him by him
who went before. Beginning at Kant, and ending at Hegel,
was a succession of phUosopbers, whose superiors the world
never saw. Aristotle rose, Uved and laboured alone ; Plato
rose, Uved, and laboured alone, buUding not on Aristotle
but on an entirely different foundation. Bacon was alone,
separated by centuries from his master Aristotle. Newton
and Leibnitz lived and laboured alone. But Kant sur
rendered his work to Fichte, Fichte to ScheUing, SchelUng
to Hegel, and there it reached the end. In concentration,
abstraction, grasp and force, those men were singly of the
mightiest. But they were Unked : they make a chain : each
took up the task dropped by the one before him and
forwarded the work. The conditions for solving the pro
blems of religion without the Bible could not conceivably be
finer. Whatever men could do, they could do. But what
was the end of their work ? Nothing but miserable doubt,
uncertainty, blank, unmitigated hopelessness. A "born
Hegelian " is the most compact term to define a man who, in
relation to reUgion, is always seeking but never finding. At
the end of this long search Germany had gained not a single
step : it was " Blinded with doubt, in wildering mazes lost,"
But not even Newton's one pearl on the shores of the ocean
of infinite truth had it attained. The nation had been cut
loose from its moorings. As were the leaders so were the
foUowers. F. A. Bahrdt, the extreme product of the infidel
reaction in the last century, ended his days in an ale-house,
the clergy were the most unbelieving of all classes ; the
gospel idea of regeneration was utterly lost sight of, and the
process of raising the world by self-culture, by educating the
inner Ufe to a perfection attainable of itself, was the only
moral specific. The faUure was utter, final, irremediable.
At the end of this long career of " protesting," the simple
way was to leave the generation to die in its infidelity, while

INTEODUCTION. XIX
a few who had all along preserved the hidden truth — who
had carried the ark — began to work again with the simple
elements of divine power as revealed in the old and yet new,
the imperishable Bible.
This work supplied another great want in our literature,
in defining distinctly and yet with a generous candour the
relation of the great German poets to Christianity. For
living in an age when theological questions were of the first
importance, they entered into those questions more deeply,
perhaps, than any other class of men, though their poems
may not display this to the superficial glance. But, to take
a single example, no one can understandingly read SchiUer
who is not acquainted with Kant's philosophy, and does not
see that Schiller made it the burden of his life, not to enter
tain, nor sestheticaUy charm his countrymen, but to interpret
to them in symbolic language, and in the clinging phrase of
poetry, the phUosophy of Kant. Schiller is as much Kant
versified, as Pope's Essay on Man is Bolingbroke in verse.
SchiUer was as devoted to this task in the selection of sub
jects, as Carlyle is to the canonization of single-handed might,
in our days. And so with the other great German poets :
their Uves and their writings cannot be divorced from the
philosophy and theology of their age. And the author of
this work has rendered an inestimable service in showing
how the writers on education, the essayists, and the poets as
weU as the phUosopbers and preachers, stood in relation to
the central cause of Christianity.
With these introductory remarks, we commit this volume
to the readers of Great Britain and the United States, confi
dent that it is one of the choicest gifts which Germany has
yet bestowed upon the world, and trusting that the favour
whioh has been abundantly shown to it in the country of
its birth may be continued in the countries of its adoption.
Wm. Leonhard Gage.
J. H. W. Stuckenberg.

I.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY.  TOLEEATION
AND EELIGIOUS INDIFFERENCE. — -THE DECADENCE OF THE
ECCLESIASTICAL SPIEIT.  THE EEFOEMATION THE COMMON
PEOPERTY OF CHRISTIANS, AND SPECULATIVE EADICALISTS. 
THE TRUE STANDARD OF APPEAL IN ALL EELIGIOUS MEA
SUREMENTS. S with the traveller, approaching his home after
a long journey, what is strange disappears with
every step, and what is famiUar comes more into
view, until at last he stands at his own door and
sits at his own hearth, so is it with him who passes from the
history of the past to the history of the present. The forms and
the circumstances which he associates with times gone by, recede
more and more from sight, and the men and the things which
are nearer to him come clearer before him, men and things not
cotemporaneous, indeed, but removed from him by only a few
years, and so seemingly related to the present. It is with us,
then, as if our fathers were telling us of their own fathers
or grandfathers, as if our mothers were telling us of their own
mothers and grandmothers; or as if we were introduced into a
great famUy hall, where hung the coats-of-arms and the portraits
of governors, of judges, of preachers, and professors, among whom
we could recognise the faces of some ancestors of our own, of
our relatives, and friends. How many traces of a family
resemblance we seek to find, and how many points of Uke
ness between those of the present and those of the past we
discover in the expression, in the bearing, and even in the
raiment itself I
And thus it is with us when we enter upon the history of
the eighteenth century, considered first in its reUgious,
and then in its general aspect.
Looking then at the period before us, it is evident at a
glance that it differs widely from the sixteenth and seven-
A

2 CHAEACTEEISTICS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
teenth centuries. As those composed the epoch of reUgious
persecutions and reUgious wars, so the eighteenth century was
the epoch of rationaUsm and of universal toleration. This is
stUl truer of the second than of the first hajlf of the century.
At its opening the old warUke spirit had not ceased ; but was
becoming, from new motives, to be poUtical rather than eccle
siastical. We shaU therefore rarely have occasion to aUude
to civil strife, from that of the Spanish succession to the
Seven Years' war. And not only were the great struggles
with arms mostly over, but those tremendous conflicts of
faiths, of Protestantism and Catholicism, of Lutherans and
Calvinists, were withdrawing to the background, and when
they continued to be waged, it was by the schools mostly,
which still keep the old ideas aUve, and go on spinning the
tough threads when the people have lost aU their interest.
The people in the eighteenth century tumed their thoughts
with increased interest to poUtical, economical, and industrial
affairs : ecclesiastical matters were of less import. And here
is the dark side of the picture which we are to study. With
a tolerant spirit comes also a spirit of indifference to religious
things; with persecution for faith's sake, dies away active
spiritual life ; with an increase of light rises also scepticism ;
unbelief contends with superstition for the masteiy, and the
tyranny of the former is not less baleful than that of tbe
latter. And it is the history of ecclesiastical decay, its causes
and consequences, that we are to study. It may doubtless be
less pleasant to trace this decay than to transport ourselves
back to the times when men's faith was undisturbed, but it
may not be less profitable for the spiritual life.
And, indeed, it is weU that we investigate the history of
ecclesiastical decadence, and study it on all sides, in order that
we may be enabled to judge what has been rightfuUy out
grown, and therefore abandoned, as incapable of resurrection,
and what it is the mission of our time to re-establish, and to
preserve as a sacred inheritance, even though it be now in
the dust. And therefore we have to trace not only the pro
cess and progress of decadence, but also observe that which
has still continued to exist, and which, either in large measure
cr in small, has increased in Ufe and power ; and it is not
right to overlook that, which, although in partial and con-

CHAEACTEEISTICS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. 3
strained manner, has served the useful purpose of aiding in
the germination of every good and productive thing. It is
especially necessary that we study the spirit of the age, of
which so much is said ; to hold it clearly in sight and not
mistake which way it leads; that we carefully discriminate
from it our special opinion, modified by our own humours as
it is; so that on the one hand we be not hardened against
correct, judgments although they may be new, and on the
other that we be not at the mercy of every novelty ; and that
we may not be of the number of those who contend against
God, but of those who boldly declare war upon all which is
not of God.
The task which we thus impose upon ourselves is not a
light one. The more deeply rooted our age is in the age
just gone by, the more closely the views and opinions now
held, link in with the subjects of our historical study, the
more danger we run of faUing into partial judgments. The
time of the Reformation, to which we must go back to find the
springs which feed the channels of the present, is, the common
property of all Protestants ; every one claims to find his own
therein, whatever may be his belief now. The strict evange
lical Christian sees in the reformers the primitive champions
of the faith, the piUars of the church, the authorities beyond
which it is folly to go. The man of so called liberal ideas, of
progress, appeals to the same reformers as the friends of light
and the enemies of darkness ; he sees in them the prophets of
liberalism, who did not themselves go far enough, but who
opened a way for us to go in the same direction, but farther
on. The former lament bitterly when they compare the pre
sent times with those when the reformers Uved; "we have
lost the old purity of doctrine, we are on the way to error :"
the latter exclaim in triumph, " we have attained to what our
fathers promised, we have mounted on their shoulders, and are
permitted to look away into the bright dawn of a better day."
So two parties, entirely distinct and opposed to each other,
build on the same foundation, look back to the same events
as precedents, and to the same men as leaders. Both are one
sided, and therefore wrong; for he alone has grasped the true
idea of Protestantism who sees in it the capacity of progres
sive development, as weU as the power of conserving what is '

4 CHAEACTEEISTICS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
fixed in the nature of things and has a positive existence :
true Protestantism opens a way into the future, and at the
same time animates with new life the real truths which are
the inheritance of the present from the past. But in the
eighteenth century the two extremes to which we have alluded,
do not lie side by side in embryo existence, as mere possibiU
ties, they exist as facts, as great powers, manifestly widely
apart, and separated by a deep abysm. On the one side are
the freethinkers as they love to call themselves; .spirits entirely
emancipated from the past, the enemies of all authority in
thought, of all traditional faith, of all that has been believed
before ; religious radicals who construct all theology out of the
pure nature of man as they would cut anything out of clean
bright wood; who do not accept any truth unless it commends
itself to that human reason from which it springs : on the other
side are the old fashioned Christians who wiU not depart a
finger's breadth from the faith of their fathers, and who deem
it a religious duty and trust, to meet with all zeal and bold
ness the unbeUef and coldness of their age before the judgments
of heaven are upon them. Both of these claim to represent
the Protestant spirit; and between them arises a great and
generaUy undecided mass of men, both scholarly and unlearned,
who would gladly enjoy what was good in the older times,
and yet would like to taste of the fruits of a newer age. And
so there is an endless chaos of opinions in which we live, in
which little seems to be settled ; and therefore it is an imperative
duty for him who feels that he has reconciled any antagonisms,
or found any soUd and substantial basis of truth, to reach the
hand and rescue, if may be, any who are tossed to and fro in
this surging ocean of doubts and fears.
The peculiar difficulty with which I have to contend is the
granting its measure of truth to every movement, one sided
and injurious as it may have been, and to point out also
whatever is false, and partial, and hostile to the best interests
of men. Grotius has well said that no sect is in possession
of all religious truth, but every one has more or less of it;
and his remark we shaU find confirmed on every page of mo
dern ecclesiastical history. But who shaU deliver a measur
ing rod to us? Shall our judgments be based on our own
preconceived prejudices or predUections, or the accidental whim

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 5
of the moment? Assuredly not. We must discover some
common standard of measurement. And this standard i.'*
nothing less than evangelical Protestantism. It is impossible
for us to decide what is and is not absolute truth ; all that we
can do is to appeal to the spirit of the Reformation. Onl}' in
this way can we attain to any uniformity of judgment: but
here is a standard to which we can appeal with good hope of
rectifying all individual opinions, of eUminating all personal
conceits and humours, and of establishing what wiU be satis
factory to all.

II.
A BRIEF SURVEY OF THE EISE OF EATIONALISM IN GEEMANY.
We have already remarked, that although the great reUgious
wars had terminated at the opening of the eighteenth century,
yet that there was visible for some time a kind of mechanical
continuation of the old strifes ; for the epochs of history are
not sharply sundered from each other, but fade away gradually
into one another, the older characteristics being supplanted
step by step by those of the new age. And so at the begin
ning of the eighteenth century we discover the existence of
the earlier type of orthodoxy, and the protracted struggle
between the Lutherans and the Calvinists ; but we also dis
cern the rise of two new adversaries, opposed to each other, no
less than to the older forms of faith, — these were pietism and
philosophy. The result of all this clashing waa such a revolu
tion of ideas as had not been witnessed since the great
Reformation. In order to understand this great and complex movement,
it will be necessary to hold in our grasp, as distinctly as pos
sible, the various directions of thought, and to study the men
who have led the human mind into these new channels.
On the very confines of the seventeenth and eighteenth cen
turies, we find, as has already been remarked, an old element
which was passing away and a new one which was coming in
with great strength. By the former we mean that stiff", hard,

6 THE RISE OF RATIONALISM IN GERMANY.
literal orthodoxy, which had transformed the fresh and life-
giving doctrines of the Reformation into stone. This theology
had done its work, had fulfiUed its mission, it had trained a
former generation to those strict and patient habits of thought,
whose fruits even the scholars of our own age are now reap
ing, and it had given a sharply defined system of faith to the
Church, au inestimable gift. But such a theology could not
always satisfy the needs of men, and, least of all, when it had
degenerated into strife and a bitter intolerance. Yet to this
theology we are indebted for the deep but dark mysticism of
Jacob Bbhme and Weigel, and at a later day for the more
practical Christianity of Arndt and Scriver, and at last for the
simple yet vigorous and useful faith and devoted lives of the
pietists, with the names of whose leaders, Spener and Francke,
most readers are already famiUar.
This mystic and pietistical movement was the resolute
opponent of the older and harder orthodoxy which just survived
the seventeenth century, and whose momentum rather than its
organic life, carried it into the eighteenth. This movement
wiU therefore be our first subject of study, — its development,
its varied manifestations, its partial divisions. It has become
the source of that powerful and beneficent Christian life, which
has produced so great a change in the orgauization of the
moral world, and has been such a blessing to the entire
Church. But it was not the pietist movement alone which went out
from Halle over the whole of Germany and Switzerland, that
was the destroyer of the earUer orthodoxy. There arose other
antagonists on every side. Reason itself turned against
its own advocates and defenders, for it lies in the very
nature of reason, that in reUgious matters it divides against
itself, and in the very workshop, where its sharp weapons
gain their edge and temper, the doubts are made equally keen
which are to be used against it. The right of free inquiry
which Protestantism grants, was turned against the Protestant
church itself, and at last against the Bible. There had indeed
been, before the eighteenth century began, some, who with a
cool manner and an indifferent heart, had besun to undermine
the mysteries of faith held by all orthodox beUevers. These
were the Arminians and the Socinians. Several followed their

THE RISE OF EATIONALISM IN GERMANY. 7
guidance, some secretly, others openly. Their writings were
read in the desire to disprove them ; but much that was read
with this motive left its sting in the mind, and led to deeper
doubts, and so, many of the orthodox were induced to abandon
their former rigidness in doctrine. Thus there was gradually
forraed a moderate school of theologians, which, without wan
dering very widely from a sound faith, yet began to compro
mise with the enemy, or at least to ignore him. But this_
state of things could not remain long without a change. The
spirit of inquiry now evoked, did not tum back to the old
mj'steries of religion, such as the Trinity and Election, but
began to inquire into the very foundation of Christianity, its
historical development and its summaries of doctrine ; and ;
then almost immediately questions began to press in as to its
beginning, its evidence, the possibiUty, reality, and necessity
of a divine revelation, the truth and authenticity of the Gos- \
pels : the reality of miracles, and the confirma,tion of prophe- !
cies. These bold inquiries had already been started by the
EngUsh deists during the seventeenth century : in the eigh-^
teenth they were pushed stiU further, not only in England, but
also in France and Germany. Voltaire and Frederick the
Great are representatives of that epoch.
Yet the frivolous spirit of French scepticism touched only
the surface of the German mind, while a deeper current of
ideas penetrated to its heart. The Germans are an eamest,
thoughtful people, They have been charged with too great
a love of pure, abstract, unpractical speculation, and it is true
that in business affairs they are slower and less skUful than
some of their more facile neighbours. But in the realm of the
spirit, the domain of science, of faith, and of deep thought, the
palm rightfuUy belongs to them. For even the highly praised
understanding of the English is rather political, mathematical,
and practical, than metaphysical and transcendental.
Slowly, step by step, and alraost entirely independently of
foreign influences, the German thinkers, with Leibnitz and
Wolf at their head, began to evolve a phUosophical theology
out of the clouds, as a sculptor would fashion a statue out of
rough marble. FUled vidth an eamest love of truth, this
philosophy did not seek to build a portly card house in the
place of the stately temple which the church had once erected,

8 THE RISE OF EATIONALISM IN GEEMANY.
or to give to a godless ea.sy Ufe, the charm of a deceitful
gilding of fanciful speculation, as the French have done, some
at least among them, and have taught a young school in
Germany to do. On the contrary, Leibnitz and Wolf had no
other aim than to compel their phUosophy to give strong
support to morality and religion. They supposed that the
force of that reason which the Creator has given to man
would be able to lift the human mind from the seen world to
the world unseen, and establish new grounds for faith and the
practical ethics of life. Their philosophy never was designed,
with all its commendation of reason, to encroach upon the
sphere of a divine revelation. They supposed, on the con
trary, that natural theology, which the human reason could
compose, and which revealed the existence of God and the
immortality of the soul, was the best preparation for revealed
religion. They thought that by means of the mathematical
method they could convince unbelievers of the credibility of
the truths which Christianity announces. Leibnitz, himself,
went so far as to try to demonstrate the Trinity and the
significance of the Lord's Supper mathematically. But soon
it was suspected by able thinkers th'at the bringing of religion
into the circle of the exact sciences would do as much harm as
good. The establishing of a natural theology, claiming
existence side by side with revealed religion, and yet having
an existence separate from it, and independent of it, seemed
to them a matter of serious import. What would become of
Christianity if a belief in God and imraortality and the ethics
which lead to a raoral life, could exist without it ? Would
not raany be content with this religion of nature, recom
mended by the deists, and think of revealed religion as of
Uttle raore worth than an imposing heap of ruins ? There
fore the so-caUed pietists, the decided advocates of a living,
strictly bibUcal faith, grounded on experience, set themselves
in as decisive antagonism to the demonstrative method of
Leibnitz and Wolf, as they had before to a cold and dead
orthodoxy. Their relative place in the battle-field was thus
changed. Before they had seemed, in contrast to the ortho
dox, as tho radicals, the innovators, the enemies of the older
traditional faith. Now, in contrast with the new phUosophy,
they appeared to be orthodox, the opponents of the modem

THE EISE OF EATIONALISM IN GEEMANY. 9
ideas, the conservatives who felt it their duty to re-affirm the
doctrines, not of the schools, but of the church and the Bible,
in the face of philosophical pride and the arrogance of
scepticism. The intentions of the pietists were noble and
high, but even Spener and Francke sometimes made mistakes,
and aUowed their zeal to outrun their discretion. After seek
ing in vain to oppose the spirit of their age, they withdrew
into quiet circles, and there uttered bitter words of complaint
that they could no longer exert a controUing influence upon
their times. Yet the abstract philosophy which they feared
would never have attained to a large popularity, the mathe
matical method would never have inaugurated a new order
of things, if another set of opinions had not come in and offered
itself to the people rather than to the deep thinkers. Deep
speculation is not what commends itself to the great mass of
men. These deraand results, convictions, quick dashes of
thought, not long and patient and profound investigation. So
partly out of the propositions which Wolf had propounded,
and partly out of the teachings of the English deists, there
arose a popular philosophy, readily apprehensible, a system
which laid great stress on its practical utility, and which pro-
raised the best enjoyraents of this life and of the life to come,
as the reward of virtue, meaning by this honourable dealing,
industry and regularity, considering it of Uttle profit to trouble'
oneseK with the difficulties and mysteries of faith. Many of
the clergy took -up these ideas and acted upon them. They
confined their pulpit instructions to a dry raorality ; they
corabated what they called superstition, and recommended
whatever they thought was serviceable to the use of the body
with Uttle regard to the soul.
Yet there were many changes in theological science in that
epoch which may be regarded as iraproveraents. The study
of the Bible liad made great progress. Scholars had pene
trated deeply into the languages in which it was written, the
raanners of action and the modes of thought of the people of
whom it speaks, and much which had hitherto baffled our
Western minds, and had been passed over as strange and in-
explainable, became clear by a more intimate acquaintance
with the general habits of the East. A distinction began to
be made between what is conditioned by time and space, and

] 0 THE EISE OF RATIONALISM IN GERMANY.
what is eternal and immutable: and the peculiarly picturesque
.style of the ancients became more inteUigible. It is true, the
.scholars of that time were not always careful, not to say
honest. Under the broad plea of the usage of language they
used in some cases to cast away that which constitutes the
very peculiarity of Christianity, and discriminates it from
other religions : and while meaningto tear away but the outward
husk, they sometiraes stripped off large pieces of the kernel,
,so that the very raeat itself disappeared under their hands.
Thus arose gradually an empty narrow theology, shrunk all
.away to the poorest common places of religious truth, and
calling itself by the name Neology. Yet we raust be on
our guard against confounding aU the neological movement of
that day in one class. There were superficial thinkers who
could not reach any thing deep, and so took up these new
notions ; and there were also those who heartily wished to
rescue what they believed to be really the pith of Christian
doctrine ; to remove the obstacles which stood in the way of
many, and to adjust Christianity to the taste of the time.
They gave up the outworks to hold the citadel. Nor ought
we to forget that during the process of excision in which so
much was cut off" from the expression of Christian faith,
much good was done : rauch was removed which was a real
injury to it, and it was left more free to awake to an in
creased activity and power. God had his hand in all these
things, though when they took place they seeraed so hostile
to the interests of a true faith. Since the Seven Years' war
the Gerraan nation has risen to an intellectual vigour never
attained before. Its literature and poetry have taken a new
start ; and the virtues of the older epoch have been grafted
in the newer, while its faults have been cast aside. We need
refer only to Lessing, whose powerful raind effected an almost
complete revolution in theology and in esthetics. In educa
tion, too, men left the old paths, and the work which was
done in France by Rousseau was continued in Germany by
Basedow, Solzraann, and Carape, not, indeed, without vehe
ment opposition on all sides from men who had grown old
in the service of the church — not without raany mistakes, and
yet not without many good fruits, as the result of the contest
It was, therefore, an idle task to attempt to irapose limits
to this genius of innovation. The Prussian edict airaed to sup-

THE RISE OF EATIONALISM IN GERMANY. 1 1
press it, and issued in 1788, was a coraplete failure. There had
to be a re-action, and that re-action had to follow its own laws.
The old orthodoxy had blunted its weapons in its contest with
pietisra, and the latter had been so rauch weakened as to need
new elements to awaken it to power again, that it might not
fall into a merely passive existence, and sigh itself away. The
more the churchfeUintodecay,andfounditsimpotencetoquicken
itself into a new and vigorous life, the more did the vital power
of Christianity display itself in individuals, and in large or
smaUer groups of true hearts. In some it appeared in the
form of devout and consecrated but thorough and philosophical
thought, in others rather as practical piety, but in all raore or
less tinged with personal traits and pecuUarities. Many of
the deepest thinkers of their age did not hesitate to declare
their adherence to a rigid interpretation of the Scriptures,
even on the peril of being the sport of the high priests of
rationalisra. Others put themselves at the head of societies,
of sects, and of brotherhoods, or established minor churches
within the great State Church. We raay mention here two
organizations which had a very wide influence upon the
eighteenth century, and which continue to exert great power
over our own age : the Moravian brotherhood, founded by
Zinzendorf, and the English Methodist Church, founded by
Wesley. Other eminent raen, such as Bengel, Swedenborg,
Oetinger, and later Lavater and Stilling, have been the raUy
ing points of no inconsiderable sects ; and while their successors
have perpetuated thefolUes and extravagancies of their predeces
sors rather than their good qualities, yet they have donegoodser-
vice in opposing the superficial and cold spirit of unbeUef It has
been a therae of reraark, that the great development in German
literature, under the conduct of Wieland,Klopstock and Lessing,
and later of Herder, SchUler, and Goethe, has run in parallel
course to the political Revolution in France; and that in the
former country the old intellectual ideas were as much
shattered as in the latter were the old political ones. It is
now our task to trace this whole upheaval of old opinions,
and see how in all the confficts which followed, the flame of
Christian life never was lost wholly from sight, and was pre
served of God to continue to bless the world : to show how
the deep foundation of Protestantism was never touched, but
reraains sure and strong, and lasting as truth.

1 2 LIFE AND MANNERS IN GERMANY.

III.

LIFE AND MANNERS IN GEEMANY, DURING THE FIRST HALF
OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, AS PICTURED IN THE REIGN
OF FREDERICK WILLIAM THE FIRST OF PRUSSIA.
" To divide history according to centuries is a difficult task.
Great events do not cease with one and begin with the next;
they dovetaU into eaeh other, and are lost gradually from sight,
when absorbed in the one paramount spirit of the age. We
can see the leading characteristics of successive centuries,
without knowing their sources or their results."
We are reminded of this expression of Goethe, when we
look for a point to which we can link the interior history of
Protestantism at our point of departure. We stand on the
frontier, as it were, with our glance thrown backward into
the seventeenth, and forwards into the eighteenth, and yet
discover no stone to indicate the boundary line. The period
of transition which connected these two centuries is not
especially interesting. The reader finds hiraself at home
nowhere there. He comes into contact with the stiff" figures
of the tirae of Louis XIV., and yet is drearaing of a newer
and better day to come. Great personages Uke Leibnitz,
Newton, Spencer, Thomasius, stand like the Colossus of
Rhodes, with a foot on either shore, while a race of pigmies
sail beneath, spreading their raerry pennons to every passing
breeze. Turning to Germany, with which country we shall have
mainly to do in our inquiries, we miss the old and truly Ger
man life which prevailed at the- Reformation, and which was
characteristic of the seventeenth century. French modes
and customs had crept into the German courts during the
reign of Louis XIV., and had even aff'ected the manner of
Ufe among the more wealthy citizens ; and a French tone of
thought had also begun to be current. We can but picture
that epoch by quoting the words of a very strict and yet candid
critic of his own times. " If we look at the present condition
of Gerraany we see that it has undergone a great change. It

LIFE AND MANNERS IN GEEMANY. 1 3
is too well known that during the sway of the French devil
that rules us, our natural Ufe, our raodes and our usages have
altered ; and that if we be not caUed naturaUsed Frenchraen,
we ought to take some new name as a people, for Gerraans
we are no longer. Forraerly the French were not held in the
highest estimation amongst us, now-a-days we cannot live
without thera, and everything must be French — our language
French, our clothes French, our food French, French house
keeping, French dances, and French music. This Gallo
mania has caressed us and flattered us as skilfully as
the serpent did our first parents in Eden, in order to rob us
of all our old German freedom. The most of our German
princes have their palaces furnished with French upholstery;
and whoever wiU find favour at their courts must know French,
and have been in Paris, which has become a kind of univer
sity of gentiUty; if he has not had his training there, he need
have no hope of success. From the courts this false and
foreign style has descended even to the great mass of the
people. If the children have begun to talk a little, and have
passed their fourth or fifth year, they are ready to be offered
to the French Moloch, and the parents bethink themselves at
once of a French teacher of the language or of dancing. In
France no one speaks German, unless it be the Germans in
their intercourse with each other ; but with us the French
tongue has become so common, that in many places already,
cobblers, tailors, chUdren, and servants, speak in it. If a
young man wishes to pay his addresses now-a-days to a young
woman, he must wear a French hat, a French vest, and French
hose, and if he has only the condition of a bat in his head, he
is Monsieur, even before he can " parlez vous" half-a-dozen
sentences." It may be said that these things are slight and immaterial ;
that the speech and the clothing have nothing in common
with religion; and there wiU be some readers who wUl won
der that we have alluded to things so uniraportant and irrele
vant in this place, and in connection with our subject. But
these things have an appositeness, although it raay npt appear
at the first glance. A raan can worship God in the French
language as weU as in the German, but that is not the point,
it is the spirit of the worship of which we speak. If this has

1 4 LIFE AND MANNEES IN GEEMANY.
become light, and trivial, and fickle, there is no longer that
true depth to the soul which wiU enable it to receive and
retain strong irapressions. The clothes do not make the man,
but they are often an exponent of what is in the raan. And so
raanners are the expression, the physiognomy of an age, of a
people, and where this is not the case, and speech, and modes,
and customs, stand in contrast with national character, we
find a partly ludicrous and partly pitiable contradiction. And
this contradiction between French and Gerraan elements
we discover prorainently at the opening of the eighteenth
century. In raany hearts still Uved the old Gerraan churchly
spirit, as the catechisra of the age before taught it the primi
tive sincere ways of Ufe ; but the Gerraan faith, and the Ger
raan manners, had no longer their old expression. Every
where could be read, the forraer things are passed away, all
things shall becorae new ; there is another spirit abroad, only
not yet fully disclosed. There was an evident struggle between
the past and the present, but the combatants showed a want
of skill. Instead of accepting the good which the new age
off'ered to them, they grasped at the shadows, at empty show ;
and instead of holding on to what the older time had proved
and established, they held on to what was effete and value
less, and fought for life or death, yet letting the prize slip out
of their reach during the contest. Such has been the case in
all the course of history, but raore especially at the times of
gi'eat revolution in thoughts and opinions. And it was
repeated at the opening of the eighteenth century. And now
that we are seeking to gain a clear view of this transition
period, and not to let it escape us in a too general portraiture,
we will set in the foregi-ound a vigorous and sharply defined
personality, a raan who struck with energy into the ecclesias
tical moveraents of his day, a king who united wonderfully
the virtues and the faults of the older time, and who yet was
compeUed, against his wiU, to open the way for the newer
epoch, even if it were only by the power of contrast — I mean
the figure of Frederick WiUiam I., King of Prussia. And we
place him the raore readily at the outset of our inquiries into
the historical development of the Protestant spirit, because in
his son Frederick the Great, we shall find at a later stage of our

LIFE AND MANNEES IN GEEMANY. 1 5
progress the finest exponent of the characteristics of the age
to which his father will introduce us.
The Great Elector had left to his son a country in a high
degree of prosperity. The latter, a prince devoted to pomp
and show, an imitator of the French style, as it had been un
der the reign of Louis XIV., had tried to give a more imposing
effect to his authority by assuming the title of king, and of
opening the eighteenth century with his coronation ceremonies.
His wife Sophia Charlotte, of the house of Brunswick, was one
of the most gifted women of her time. To a French educa
tion, from chUdhood she united a love for Gerraan thorough
ness, which had been fostered by Leibnitz himself. She
mingled in the discussions both of Free-thinkers and of
Jesuits, and shewed equal ability in either case. The son of
these parents was King Frederick WiUiam I., who was born
in August 1688. His primary education was committed to
a Calvinistic lady from France, but as soon as he began to
display elements of independent character, he was placed in
the hands of Count Dohval, a rigid disciplinarian. In the
instructions given to the count by the king, regarding the
training of the young prince, we find the foUowing : — " The
true fear of God shall betimes be impressed upon his young
heart, that it raay take root and bring forth fruit through his
whole life, and more especially when he is beyond the care of
parents and teachers. Besides, the Crown Prince must be
thoroughly instructed regarding the majesty and the oranipo-
tence of God, that there raay be awakened in hira a holy fear
and veneration of God and his coramandraents, for this is the
only means to hold a sovereign freed frora the penalties of
human law within the bounds of duty; and just as other men
are induced by the hope of reward and the fear of punishment
to obey the coraraands of their rulers, so raust the reverence
of God awaken the sarae salutary fear in those who have no
occasion to dread the decisions of huraan tribunals." In
another place it is further ordered, — " That the Crown Prince,
with aU his attendants, shall, every raoming, offer prayer to God,
on bended knees ; after the exercise he shall read a chapter in
the Bible, and afterwards repeat a suraraary of it; and shall
also commit to meraory appropriate passages from the Psalms,
and verses which will be useful for him to know; that he

1 6 LIFE AND MANNEES IN GEEMANY.
must be thoroughly versed in the principles of religion, in the
Creed, and in the leading Calvinistic works, and be subject to
a frequent catechising ; that he be a regular attendant at
church, and be required to give an account of the sermons ;
that no one shall associate with the Crown Prince, who shall
teach hira to swear, or to use blaspheraous and filthy lan
guage." His raother undertook one part of his education;
she read some hours to him daily frora F^n^lon's Telemachus,
and raade it the text of raany running coraraents and observa
tions. The gifted queen had one great defect, she was over-
indulgent, and her son used afterwards to speak of her in these
very severe terras, " She was a talented woraan but a sorry
Christian." When the young prince gi'ew into a youth, he
raanifested a very simple and marked Gerraan taste in contrast
with the French style, and the very ceremonious display of
his father's court. He showed a great predilection for mili
tary affairs, and a singular and whimsical fondness for men of
huge size. In his eighteenth year, not long after the early
death of his mother, he was married to the Crown Princess of
Hanover, Sophia Dorothea. After seeing something of actual
field service with Marlborough and Prince Eugene, and being
present at the battle of Malplaquet, he tumed back to Berlin,
and in 1 7 1 3 ascended the throne. The year before his coro
nation, the son who became his successor, the renowned
Frederick the Great, was born. Frederick WilUam I. had
reached his twenty-fifth year when he inherited the crown.
We do not purpose to recount the story of his reign, but
to paint his character and to indicate what he had in com
raon with the Protestant Gerraan princes of his time, and
what he evidently owed to the age in which it was his for
tune to live.
As we have already remarked, the king loved the greatest
simplicity. He coraraanded his court fools to dress in the
French style, so as to bring it into the greatest derisioa
Everything French was his abhorrence, and he tried to strip
off" the thin mask of gentUity which had been worn during
his father's time, which he thought covered the face of true
sincerity. He hiraself regarded with primitive rigidness his
marriage vow, and ruled his family with a firm hand, ard
rebuked the prevalent laxness with stern •v^^ords. The virtue

LIFE AND MANNEES IN GERMANY. 17
of his private life shamed many of the princes of his time, for
he shunned every appearance of evil. When the queen was too
late home one night frora one of her receptions in Monbijou,
this rigid husband went to the house of his chaplain, and left
a letter instructing him to chide the delinquent wife for her
late hours. With a single stroke of his pen he swept away
the lavish appropriations which his father had made for the
royal expenses, and out of what he saved he paid his father's
debts. He hiraself had a duty for every hour of the day, and
he adhered strictly to his arrangements unless sudden emer
gencies disturbed his plans. As he had been taught to do
when Crown Prince, he continued to do as king, coraraencing
the day with a religious exercise ; then he received communi
cations from his counseUors, and passed his decisions upon
them, often expressing himself very laconicaUy in the margin.
At ten was parade, and then he visited the stables. While at
both of these places he received petitions, sometimes certainly
raore graciously than at other tiraes, according to his huraour,
whicli it raust be confessed was a very changeable one, and
which he never leamed to master. At eleven he met his
privy conncU; at twelve dinner was served, much more simply
than during his father's reign, yet he did not spare the Rhine
wine,, and used to laugh at those who did not join him in
deep glasses. He loved merriment at table, yet was scrupulous
about the language used, never permitting anything which
was unworthy for his family to hear.
After dinner the king was accustomed to ride out ; or,
when he was at Potsdara or Wiistershausen, he went fre
quently on foot. When on such excursions, he used to stop
those who met hira and ask them raany questions ; and if he
caught them idling, or engaged in an employment which he
did not approve, it went hard with them : he either raade
them feel his heavy walking-stick, or sent them to prison at
Spandau. But they had the hardest lot to bear who were
discovered oppressing the poor. He made every one who
talked with him look him directly in the eye, .for he believed
he could read men at a glance. Of coui-se raost, especiaUy
women and children, could not raeet this test, but the king
did not let them off; and if they ran away he had thera
pursued, and they had to stand and tell their story. An

1 8 LIFE AND MANNERS IN GERMANY.
anecdote is preserved which is very characteristic. A Jew
having faUen in his way, and concealed himself so as not to
be seen, the king had hira brought frora his hiding-place and
set before him. "Rascal, why did you run away?" "For
fear, your Majesty." The king gave him a sound caning, and
then bade him go away, and thenceforth not to fear him, but
to love him.
In sumraer at seven o'clock, and in winter at five, the
king went in to join his usual social evening circle, generally
known under the narae of the Tobacco Parliament. This
Parliament, so called, which met regularly at Berlin, or at
Potsdam and Wiistershausen if the king was there, was com
posed of seven or eight persons, raostly generals and cabinet
officers, but distinguished strangers who were in the city
were sometimes invited. Every guest was furnished with a
common Dutch pipe, and if he did not smoke, he must at
least hold the pipe in his mouth : a white jug filled with
beer was set before every one, and early in the evening
bread and butter weie served. It was rare that a more
expensive entertainment was provided. At these meetings
the king and his friends talked over the news of the day,
and soraetimes played chess : cards were not allowed. The
king was generaUy in a raerry raood on these occasions, but
in consequence of his extrerae sensitiveness, his humour
could not be reckoned on, and sometimes he was thoroughly
disagreeable. The most indispensable corapanions at these
evening entertainraents were the court jesters and weak
learned raen, or his jolly counseUors, as the king loved to
call them. Araong the latter the raost eminent wm
Gundling, a man of extensive historical research, and of repu
tation as an author, but who had sunk so far below the rank
of a scholar, and who had so far forgotten the dignity of his
profession, that he had hired hiraself to a tavern keeper,
raaking fun for the guests, and having the free run of the
bar as his pay. General Grurakow had discovered him and
recoramended hira to the king, who conceived a great liking
for him, and raade hira the subject of constant practical
jokes, which GundUng took in the best of spirits. 'The king
made hira a Baron, and called hira Your Excellency, and to
show his conterapt of scholars, raised him to the chair of

LIFE AND MANNEES IN GEEMANY. 19
President of the Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences, which
the great Leibnitz had just left vacant. But what pleased
the king most of all was, to set Gundling and Fossmann
the royal biographer against each other in sorae petty contro
versy, and then urge thera on tiU they carae to blows, as
they not .seldora did. We need nothing raore than this to
learn the attitude of Frederick- Williara towards scholarship
and Uterature. He despised men of letters as thoroughly use
less : he classed them with comedians, mountebanks, rope
dancers, and the like, and wished to drive them all out of
the kingdom at once. He hiraself was very ignorant, and
wrote in the most incorrect manner, mistaking aUke in
orthography and syntax. We can excuse in part his con
tempt for scholars, for in truth they were at that tirae raostly
a fooUsh and pedantic class. The king was simply a prac
tical man, and wanted none round him but men of quick
and sure judgment. He cared nothing for philosophers and
poets. ScheUing, Tieck, and Riickert would have had a very
quiet career in his day. He was a special foe of the Latin
language, as well as of all dead tongues and ancient history.
All such lore he held as useless, and once, when he discovered
the tutor of his son, Frederick the Great, teaching him the
Aurea Bulla, he broke in upon him with his formidable cane,
and used it eflfectually over his shoulders, throwing in his rough,
" Wait, you rascal ; I'll Aurea BuUa j'ou to your hearts'
content." And yet, with aU this, he was a truly pious man ;
he was devotedly attached to his religion. How this could
have been, with aU his strange humours and his passionate
nature, has been considered a psychological riddle ; but to
solve it, we raust take into account the times in which he
Uved, the education which he had received, and his strongly
marked individuaUty. We should judge very hastily if we
should say, that to the rough and barbarous raanners of the
king there was joined nothing but a dead, heartless, or even
a hypocritical piety. From hypocrisy he was far removed,
and we have no reason to doubt that he was a man of the
most serious and settled reUgious convictions. Dead and
heartless, it would be wrong to call him. Wherever he heard
a complaint of ecclesiastical despotism in the Palatinate, in
Poland or in Austria, he espoused the Protestant side with

20 LIFE AND MANNERS IN GEEMANY.
his whole heart, and took a deep interest tiU the wrong was
retrieved. His piety took other practical directions, as the
magnificent Hospital de la Charith in Berlin, and the Orphan
House in Potsdam, bear witness. Frora many of his expres
sions we see that he was a man profoundly convinced of the
truth of Christianity ; and yet his piety appears to be rather
that proceeding frora law than frora love ; to be rather the
effect of fear than of the Gospel ; although there are times
when the radiant spirit of Christ seeras to break through his
life. As we have already raentioned, it was laid down in the
instructions given by his royal father, that he should be
trained in the fear of God, which should teach him to bridle
his spirit. But this fear of God, which did not comprise the
great idea of Christian liberty, was very inadequate to give
hira self-control, and to preserve hira frora the strong sway
of his passionate caprices. An exaraple may show this. The
preacher, Freylinghausen, son-in-law of the celebrated Francke,
of HaUe, was once invited to dine with the king at his
hunting-lodge at Wiistershausen ; and he thought it his duty
to give Frederick- WUliara a lecture on the wickedness of the
chase. " Hunting is a sin," said the good raan, " a disaUowed
pleasure, because no man can do right to torment and kUl a
poor beast after it has been run down and lies panting and
exhausted : that panting is the sighing of the creature to its
Creator, and you raust give an account to God for what you
do then." The king was much affected by this plain deaUng,
but the next day he went out hunting again.
Nor was hunting the worst. The cruel means with which
he got possession of men of great stature to raake them mem
bers of his body-guard, the cool giving to death of offenders,
and particularly of deserters, his unfatherly treatraent of his
son Frederick, — how have these anything to do with the fear of
God, which he considered, in other things, the basis of aU royal
vir-tues ? If any man's life is a running comraentary on the
Apostle's words of the double law working within us, of the flesh
and of the spirit, that raan is King Frederick WUliam ; but he
never came, as the apostle did, to a consciousness of this war
fare within himself. Dograatical with the understanding, he
yet ascribed to the Gospel a power which could re-mould life
and make it capable of its highest possibilities. But as witb

LIFE AND MANNERS IN GERMANY. 21
SO raany others, who have understood -that this is indeed so,
he did not wholly feel it with the heart. The atoneraent
and faith in Christ becarae a kind of cushion which should
give his conscience repose, and on which he could securely
rest ; even when on the death-bed, he lacked that sincere
repentance, without which the atoneraent is of no avail. But
when he lay at the door of death, his chaplain Roloff dealt
very plainly with hira, and tried to waken hira out of this
deceitful sleep. " I have often told your raajesty," said Roloff"
in presence of the whole court, " that Christ is the hope of
our salvation, on the two conditions that we accept Him with
the heart, and follow His exaraple and precepts. So long as
we fail in either of these conditions, so long can we not enter
into His rest. And if your raajesty were to be saved by a
miracle, of which, however, we have no reason for expectation,
you would not enjoy heaven, in the condition of raind in
which you now are. Your array, your treasures, your lands
must reraain here — no courtiers can follow you there, no
servants on whora you can wreak your anger. In heaven a
man raust have a heavenly raind." Those were words worthy
of a Nathan. The king reraained silent, and yet he looked
round with an appealing, supplicating eye, as if to say. Will
no one corae to ray relief? But when the attendants retired
and the raonarch began to recount his sins one by one, Roloff
refused to listen to so unprotestant a confession, and only
deraanded that the king should acknowledge the need of a
change of heart, and this Frederick Williara would not grant.
He thought that in this kings had the advantage of other raen,
and he insisted on justifying hiraself by his good works. And
when some one who stood by sided with the dying man,
Roloff" charged upon the poor monarch the blows which he
had inflicted upon his subjects, the tyranny he had exercised
over them, and the unjust sentences of death which he
had passed.
A rigid orthodoxy in externals, joined to a common and
unspiritual frame of mind, and a want of appreciating true
culture, worked raost unfavourably on the education of his
son Frederick, and doubtless produced that reaction which we
know was experienced in the life of that son when he passed
out of his father's hands. The instruction which the father

22 LIFE AND MANNEES IN GEEMANY.
ordered to be iraparted to the crown prince, was to a hair the
sarae which he had received when a boy. " In special," he
says, " must my son have a righteous love and fear of God,
as the comer-stone and the only pillar to sustain our earthly
V7ill-being, and he must shun all those baleful and seductive
.socts, such as the atheistical Arians and Socinians, who work
on young spirits like poison. Let them not be spoken of in
his presence, and let him be taught to abhor the Catholic re
ligion, which raust be classed in the same ranks, and be in
structed to despise the absurdity of its pretensions ; but let
him be carefuUy trained in the true Christian religion, which
teaches that Christ died for all raen, and that He is our only
confidence and trust. Let him also be so carefully shown the
proofs of God's omnipotence, that he shall always retain "a
holy fear and veneration of God and His commandments ; for
this is the only means of holding a sovereign, freed from the
penalties of human law, within the bounds of duty." The
last are the very sarae words which his own father had written
years before. All very good. But where the living spirit
was wanting, what could the dead letter do ? Would not the
lioliest thing have a touch of the ridiculous in it, if it were
conjoined with that stiff" railitary' style of expression : as for
exaraple, that a prayer should take just twenty rainutes' time?
At any rate it awakens pecuUar feelings to read the well-
raeant and, in many respects, exceUent orders for the Crown
Prince's observance of the Sabbath. " On Sunday my son
Fritz (Frederick the Great later) shall rise at seven. As soon
as he shall have put on his trousers, he shall fall on his knees
before the bed and pray to God, and loud, too, so that all in
the chamber can hear him. The prayer shall be this, and shall
be learned by heart : Lord God, holy Father, I thank thee
heartily that thou hast graciously preserved me this night;
make me to do thy holy will, and suffer me to do nought
this day nor aU the days of my Ufe which can separate me
from thee, for Jesus, my Saviour's sake. Araen." Certainly
a fine, simple, and appropriate prayer, such as would be well
for every monarch's son in Christendom to repeat every
morning. But what a check to our enjoyment of it is the
continuation of the same document, with its stiS business air ;
' So soon as this is over, he shaU dress himself nimbly, wash

LIFE AND MANNERS IN GERMANY. 23
hiraself well, comb, tie up and powder his hair, and must
accomplish all, the prayer included, in fifteen minutes' time,
at quarter past seven. Then he shall breakfast in five
rainutes. When this is through, all the domestics shall come
in, Duhon shall read a chapter from the Bible, lead in a good
hyran, and pray, till it shall be quarter of eight ; the domes
tics shaU then withdraw. Duhon shall then go on explaining
from the Bible, instructing the prince in the principles of
Christianity," &c.
This military exactness the king also carried into the public
worship of God. He laid on all preachers the injunction not
to aUow their serraons to be more than an hour long, uuder
penalty of two rix thalers.
Yet Frederick William took the greatest care to procure
able ministers for his people. He regarded hiraself as the
head of the National Church, and charged hiraself with its
whole interests and affairs. He himself issued an order that
candidates for the ministry should be instructed in a clear,
sensible, and edifying method of sermonizing. They shall
have no high ffights, shall use no allegorical and flowery
words, which might be well enough frora the professor's chair,
but which are worse than useless, yes, even injurious to the
interests of Christianity, when uttered frora the pulpit. To
further this, Reinbeck's sermons were particularly recom
mended. The court chaplains, Reinbeck and Roloff, were most
excellent men, to whom the king gave his full confidence, and
who could say many things to him which he would not bear
from others. Reinbeck belonged to the men who were able
to look with clear and rare discrimination into the theology of his
times : he was (perhaps too strongly), an advocate of the new
philosophy of Wolf, which the king disliked extremely at first,
but was afterwards reconciled to. Reinbeck's name wiU always
be raentioned in the history of pulpit eloquence araong those
who, even before the days of Mosheim, introduced a more
tasteful style of preaching, and one more satisfying to thought
ful rainds. Roloff is not known as a writer, so far as I have
been able to learn ; but the words which he spoke at the king',s
deathbed, are worth voluraes of printed sermons. Reinbeck, too,
did not hesitate to speak plainly to Frederick William when
occasion required. When the latter once put on airs, and said

24 LIFE AND MANNEES IN GERMAXY.
that he knew already what was right and what was wrong,
Reinbeck answered hira with the words of Christ, " The servant
who knoweth his Lord's will and doeth it not, shall be beaten
with raany stripes." The king was sensitive, but he usually
regarded these faithful dealings. To those two, the king, near
the end of his life, added the pious and learned Sack. We
quote the account which the son of the latter gives of the
invitation to his father.
"Early in the year 1740, Noltenius, one of the preachers
to the court, died suddenly at Berlin. A few days after that
event my father received the following letter : —
' Worthy, very Dear and trusted ! — Because on Sunday
next you are to preach to me, I wiU that you take extra post,
so as to arrive in BerUn on Saturday. — I am your very afiPec
tionate king, Frederick William.'
" My father started the same day, and arrived at Berlin the
next evening. Early on Saturday the king sent a page to
him, who repeated the order to preach to the court the next day,
and soon after another, who brought a little Testament from
which Frederick William would have hira preach. He offici
ated the next day as ordered. After service the king gave
him to understand that he was rauch pleased with the ser
raon, and coraraanded him to dine with the queen the same
day. The king, who was very sick, was roUed in to table in
an easy chair, talked in an extremely easy and familiar man
ner with my father, and directed him to preach the next day,
with the remark that he might be deceived by one sermon,
and wished to be surer that he was the raan he sought. The
second service only strengthened the good opinion already
forraed, and ray father was called at once to the vacant pulpit.
My father had an interview subsequently with the king dur
ing his sickness, and he has often repeated a reraark which the
monarch dropped : ' Stick to the New Testament ; I will tell
you what is the chief thing in religion, to fear God, to love
Jesus Christ, and to do right ; the rest is nothing.' "
This miUtary roughness, joined to an unraistakeable love of
religion, together with a certain geniality, showed itself in the
manner in which the king atterapted to reforra public worship.
In the rites of the Lutheran Church, which together with the
refonned or Calvinist Church were sanctioned by the State,

LIFE AND MANNERS IN GEEMANY. 25
there were many relics of the older CathoUc ceremonies, lights,
choristers, vestments, priestly gowns, Latin songs, the sign of
of the cross, &c. All this the king wanted to put away, as a
remnant of Popery, and proscribed them by an order issued
in 1733. Sorae preachers gave up readily to the king's
reformatory spirit, others held these changes as inconsistent
with their consciences, and as injurious to the old Lutheran
ism ; others stiU believed that the people would be led astray
by the abandonment of what had been established so long ;
for, said they, if we are to abolish eveiy relic of Popery, we
must destroy the churches too, for they were mostly built by
the Papists. One preacher came with the announcement that
the first time the simplified service was held, the people looked
on in wonder ; others reported the sighs and sorrowful expres
sions which they had heard in their congregations. They
alluded especially to the deep symljolic significance of the
lighting of candles, by which were typified the burning love
of the Saviour and shining of the Christian's light before raen.
But the king reraained fixed in his decision, and renewed the
order in 1737, vsdth this additional announceraent, that if any
minister found any trouble to his conscience in conforming to
it, his resignation would be accepted. And in fact one preacher,
who had stoutly opposed the king's order, was deposed from
office. Not much of the spirit of Protestantism in that act. j
Yet in sorae raatters Frederick Williara was even tolerant.
Orthodox and pedantic as he was, so far as concerned the ex
ternals of reUgion, he was very much opposed to theological
polemics, or " parsons' quarrels," as he called them. He him
self was Calvinistic, the queen Lutheran, but he often sought
out Lutheran preachers, and in consequence of their heartiness
and popular way, he gave them the preference over the Cal
vinists, whose sermons, fraraed on the raodels of TiUotson and
Saurin, were more elaborate and learned. " It is a shame,"
said the king, " that the Lutherans have all the exceUent
theologians, and that their sermons are so much more edifying
than our Calvinists' are." Therefore he selected raostly from
the Lutherans for army chaplains, because he believed that
their hearty style would make more irapression upon the sol
diers than the more stately raanner of the Calvinistic preachers.
Frederick WUliam I. died May 31, 1740. We have already

26 LIFE AND MANNEES IN GERMANY.
alluded to his last hours. The particularity with which he
specified the arrangements for his funeral is remarkable. He
ordered where each battalion should assemble, where it should
raount, and in what order it should fire over the grave.
Amid aU this mUitary preparation he did not overlook spiri
tual raatters. This blending of warlike with religious disci
pline clung to hira to the last, for it was the very nature of
the man. He hiraself chose the funeral text : " I have fought
a good fight," and ordered the hyran, " Who suffers only God
to rule." "Of ray life and career, of ray actions and what is
personal to rae, let not one word be spoken, but let the people
be told that I have expressly ordered it so, with this in addi
tion, that I died a great and poor sinner, but hoped for grace
frora God for the Saviours sake. The clerg}'' shall neither
blarae nor praise me in their sermons after my obsequies."
The king himself anticipated the verdict of the historian
He cannot be praised without qualification, for there was
much that was unpraiseworthy mingled vsdth what was good
and worthy, especiaUy when we apply that Christian mear
suring Une which the king was the first to apply to himself
But who, raeasured by that standard, does not come short?
And so Frederick Williara's character is not to be despised,
and in despising him, historians have committed a great mis
take, and done him a great wrong. He has been commonly
measured by his son, and those who have regarded Frederick
the Great as the type of all greatness, have naturally had
no eye for what was excellent in his father and in his
father's tirae. So Voltaire has collected everything that
was ridiculous and hateful in Frederick William, and
even the daughter of the king, the Princess of Baireuth,
has tried to depreciate him, while Frederick the Great
always extoUed his father, and gave him credit for real
abilities. On the one side of his nature Frederick WilUam I. was a
thoroughly Protestant character, who well deserved to be en
roUed as one of the guardians of Protestantism. And this
not only on account of his true fatherly care for the Lutheran -
and Reformed Church, but also from his decided love of truth,
the earnestness with which he treated aU religious things, and
his rigid discipline, so far as externals were concerned. But

LIFE AND MANNEES IN GEEMANY. 27
he had only this one side of Protestantisra. He initiated that
course, which has from his day to ours been followed by
some, — the blending of a genuine piety with an unconquer
able roughness of manners, the union of reUgion with ignor
ance. Religion does not consist, indeed, in knowledge, nor in
an elegant address, nor in a cultivated mind ; for there can
be piety among men who are not the raost highly educated.
But the want of learning must be carefully discriminated from
purposed ignorance, frora that coarseness which prides itself
on its little knowledge and narrowness, and which assuraes
moral worth from such an ignoble possession. What we
should not criticise in a shepherd or in a peasant, would pain
us in a king. The scorn which Frederick WUliam showed to
science was a sin, although not regarded by him as such.
How much does this Protestant king stand below those rulers
which, at the tirae of the Reformation and since, have
laboured for the advance of Protestantisra by labouring for
the advance of science, below Frederick the Wise, below
Elizabeth, below WiUiara of Orange, below Gustavus Adol
phus, below his own model, the great Elector ! Frederick
WUliam was not only opposed to all science, but to all know
ledge the practical worth of which he did not see, and so to all
the dead languages and ancient history. Here was the rough
nature of the man. The old reforraers and the princes who
adhered to thera, even the age in which they lived, prized
knowledge for itself alone, as the light of the mind, which is
just as solacing to the inner eye as the greenness of the mea
dows is to the external eye which enjoys it. The apprecia
tion of ancient Uterature and the appreciation of the Bible,
awakened at the time of the reformation, were allied raost
closely^ and one served the other. It was now no longer so.
Leaming had sunk into pedantry, and a living piety into
dead orthodoxy.
Honourable to the king was his faithful observance of
private religious services ; but, where no high spiritual Ufe is
awakened by this, even these raust lead to a raechanical reli
gion, which has no connection with a sound faith. A prayer,
such as he prescribed for his son, to be repeated at just such
an hour and in just such words, is not the best means to lead
a young soul to contemplate its own deepest wants and to

28 LIFE AND MANNEES IN GERMANY.
guide it to God. The history of Frederick II. wUl show us
how much this satiety of reUgious teaching and worship,
without any true spiritual instruction, estranged him from all
religion. And how many exaraples of this wiU be found in
all history, ancient and raodern ! What we blame in Fred
erick William in this respect, concems more or less the "good
old tiraes," which is praised so rauch, or rather those who so
foolishly praise it. How often the past is brought into con
trast with the present, as though its piety was wholly with
out defects ! But how often was that piety only the outer
forra, "the letter that killeth," and not "the spirit that
raaketh aUve." Where it was both we will not withhold
our praise of piety, even though it raay have been joined to
sorae old and stiff fornis. But it is not a matter of entire
regret that the old forras have passed away, if we have, as 1
think we have, the spirit of religion put forth in other shapes.
That spirit is happily not dependent upon forras, and it is a
matter of congratulation that it is now less fettered by them,
and is more free to put forth its power than it was in those
older times, when the external husk was prized above the
inner kernel.
Taken as a whole we cannot say that Frederick Williara
resisted the best tendencies of his age. On the contrary, he
himself helped to open the way to a better tirae, and amid
all that was rough aud thorny in hira, we recognize the buds
of a raore advanced and a regenerated epoch. His very dis
inclination to erapty and pedantic learning led to learning
more stable and sincere, and the desire to see religious sects
Uve in harmony was only a glirapse into what will one day
be realized, when theological strifes will be ended and the
Spirit of Christ shaU reign.

PIETISM AND ITS OPPONENTS. 29
IV.
PIETISM AND ITS OPPONENTS.
STRIFE BETWEEN THE LUTHERANS AND THE CALVINISTS.  THE
PHILOSOPHER WOLF, A SKETCH OF HIS CAEEEE, HIS BANISH
MENT FEOM HALLE AND HIS EECAL.  HIS SYSTEM IN ITS EEAL
THEOLOGICAL EELATIONS.  LATEE DEVELOPMENT OF PIETISM,
ITS EXCELLENT INFLUENCES DUEING THE WAES OF FEEDEEICK
THE GEEAT, AND ITS SUBSEQUENT DECLINE.
Passing from the royal personage who has just engaged our
attention, and who, more than any other, was the represen
tative man of his time, we corae to a nearer view of the great
ecclesiastical controversies which occupied the first half of the
eighteenth century. There were three of these — the protracted
contest between the Lutheran and the Reforraed or Calvinistic
Churches ; the contest between the orthodox and the pietists ;
and the contest between the pietist and the new philosophy
of Wolf The first, with however rauch zeal it is now prose
cuted, had then sunk into a passive state, and had to be
reckoned among the things gone by, and to make way for a
raore tolerant spirit ; the second, too, which had begun in the
seventeenth century, had gradually lost its iraportance ; while
the thfrd, the contest between pietism and phUosophy, then in
its beginning, was destined to absorb aU attention, and to con
tinue on, even to the days in which we live.
Beginning with the flLrst, there were not wanting at that
time hard rubs between the Lutherans and the Calvinists,
which sometimes were very hateful in their spirit. Up
to the middle of the eighteenth century, these controversies
were not merely about matters of doctrine, the Calvinists
denied that the Lutherans had the right of using the churches,
even in Lutheran cities, such as Frankfort, Worms, and Ham
burg. In the last named place a controversy had long existed
between Lessing and Gotze, a pastor there, who in his foolish
zeal called the doctrine of the Calvinists, " the devil's theology,"

30 PIETISM AND ITS OPPONENTS.
and considered it as very dangerous to extend any privUeges
to them. For half a century Pastor Neumeister had used the
same language. He had tried to prove, with a sad and yet
ludicrous acuteness, that the Calvinists did not hold to any
one of the twelve articles of the apostles' creed, nor to any
of the petitions of the Lord's prayer ; that with their doctrine,
they sinned against the ten comraandraents, that they had no
religion at all, that their theology was a beggar's cloak, com
posed of bits of heresy sewed together, and that he would
rather be an irrational creature, or a poor worm, than the
most celebrated Calvinistic theologian ; for the latter will cer
tainly go straight to heU. That Christ and Belial will strike
hands together sooner than Luther and Calvin. Yet to the
honour of the century, let it be said, that this was only the
talk of a few senseless raen, that the spirit of the age was
against thera, and that the books were in far greater demand
which spoke out freely and boldly of a union between these
two churches, before distant and widely apart.
By Pietism we do not raean all that maUce and ignorance
has saddled upon the word, but that decisive movement in the
Protestant Church of Germany, which had been begun by
Spener and Francke, and which, making Halle its starting
point at the opening of the eighteenth century, had extended
over the whole land : a raoveraent in antagonisra to the theo
logy of the schools, and aiming to restore a practical kind of
piety, and a siraple primitive order of things in the Church ;
laying great stress upon a profound conviction of sin, the
depravity of human nature, and a change of heart, and exer
cising a severity of judgment as to externals, so as sometimes to
fall into a one-sided and raorbid conscientiousness. This
moveraent, from the very fact that it awakened many out of
their slumber, aroused many opponents, and these long re
mained in a hostile attitude.
Up to the call of the phUosopher Wolf to HaUe, an event
of great iraportance in those tiraes, and coramented upon
largely by all historians, that city had been the centre of pure
and strong religious influences. Philosophy had modestly
given way to theology. The independent spirit with which
the former now stepped forward in the person of Christian
Wolf, the boldness of his systera, so rauch raisunderstood,

PIETISM AND ITS OPPONENTS. 31
awoke in pious rainds an anxiety which we need not be sur
prised at, without ascribing to ambition and jealousy the
opposition which the pietistic leaders raanifested towards him.
We cannot avoid speaking quite fully of this great raan, since
he gave direction to so much that was characteristic of
the age.
Christian Wolf, born at Breslau, January 24, 1679, was
the son of a tanner, and, as he tells us in the account of his
own life, received a rigidly religious education; when a chUd he
went to Church, without regard to weather, read the Bible,
was famUiar with the best hymns, and, in fact, was dedicated
by his parents even then to a clergyraan 's life. At the gyra-
nasiura of his native place he had becorae so conversant with
theology, that on entering the University at Jena, he says
that he found little new to learn. The lectures on physics
and raathematics attracted hira rather than those on theology ;
yet it reraained his constant determination to " serve God by
preaching," and the raore so, since he had been consecrated to
such a career by a vow of his parents.
Wolf tells us in his autobiogTaphy, that even while he lived
at Breslau, where there were raany CathoUcs, who were always
in controversy with the Lutherans, the thought occurred to
him, " Whether it is not possible to raake the truth of reli
gion appear so plainly, that no chance for doubt can exist."
As he heard that raatheraatics is a science so exact that every
one has to grant what it proves, he studied raatheraatics assi
duously, in order to transfer to theology the same certainty.
This was a preparation for preaching which few raade, and
the young candidates were left by hira to thefr study of lan
guage and history, while he went on with the prosecution of
the exact sciences. He preached a number of tiraes, and as
he teUs us with great applause. " My raethod of serraonizing
was praised, because I sought to convey the raost clear and
exact idea of my subject, and to let one thing be deduced from
another. It has often been said to me, that when it was asked
how I always held the attention of aU who came to hear me,
the answer was that they could always understand rae but
they could not others." This eminent talent for instruct
ing was apparent in his sermons, as it was ever after in the
professorial chair. As mathematics had been auxiliary with

32 PIETISM AND ITS OPPONENTS.
him to theology, it begun to lend its aid to philosophy, and
the latter, thus supported, gradually became the study of his
life. In original power, as a phUosopher, Wolf was second to
Leibnitz, in whose steps he walked ; but he had a happy and
comprehensive grasp of philosophical truths, and entered suc
cessfully on the vocation of making philosophy, which had till
then been inaccessible to men of average talents, an interest
ing study — in other words, to be the mediator between the
highest thinker and the educated mind of his age.
In 1707 he was called to the Chair of Mathematics and
Physics at the University of HaUe, but subsequently to 1 709
he delivered lectures on Metaphysics, Logic, and Morals. His
reputation grew commensurately with the hearty zeal with
which he gave hiraself to his work. His style was remark
able for its transparent clearness; but in proportion as he won
applause on one side, he incurred the suspicion of the other,
that his method of dealing with phUosophical and theological
theraes, would bring peril to the religious belief of men and
the soundness of their doctrine. This peril seemed to be
grounded on the double reason of forra and of substance.
Unquestionably the stern raatheraatical, the purely inteUectual
expression, a mode of address destitute of all imagination and
picturesque language, raust excite opposition on the theolo
gical field, in an age when men were accustoraed to keep the
dograas of the church obscured in a twilight gloom. Yet in
the effort to raake everything clear and inteUigible to all, there
lay the danger of reducing the exalted truths of Christianity
to trivialities, especiaUy as there were not lacking blind imi
tators who could not have enough of a good thing. So the
story is told that once one of the Wolf school of preachers,
who wanted to explain his text as fuUy as possible, chose the
verse frora eighth chapter of Matthew, " When Jesus was
corae down from the mountain, great multitudes foUowed
him," and began to expound as follows : — A mountain is a
high elevation of land, a raultitude is a large concourse of
people, &c. In this way preaching becarae raore like an ex
ercise in logic than a raeans of edification ; breadth was taken
for depth, a tedious style was taken as an exhaustive style,
and so it was inevitable that those who sought in preaching

PIETISM AND ITS OPPONENTS. 33
not only what instructs but also what edifies and cheers, were
entirely opposed to this pedantry.
But it was not merely the demonstrative form which was
criticised in Wolf's philosophy, and which, when transferred to
the pulpit, was a true source of offence, but which should
never have been charged upon the great founder of the sys
tera himself; the substance of his doctrine also, gave rise to
much raisunderstanding. It is always difficult to cull single
expressions frora a rigid philosophical system, and then to
judge of them frora the stand-point of comraon sense, or from
that of practical piety. It is the mark of an uneducated
mind, one unused to high processes of thought, to wish to
detach each link from such a chain as is a strict philosophical
system, and to exaraine it by itself. There are many sen
tences which derive aU their significance from their context,
and that which, in the mouth of a wise man, and in connection
with his mode of thought, has an evident intelligibility, can
become in the mouth of the people a raere jumble of nonsense.
It is, therefore, always easy to turn philosophers into ridicule,
and just as easy to bring them under suspicion. When that
which phUosophy estabUshes as a raatter of pure thought, is
transformed into an article of faith, or a clause in the cate
chisra, it serves neither phUosophy nor religion, it only con
fuses both. Not that philosophical and religious truths are
in contradiction to each other; but there is in philosophy and
in religion a method of thought, and a method of speech, ap
propriate to each ; the one is for raan's knowledge, tbe other
for man's faith ; the one is within the province of the undei-
standing, and the other is within the province of feeling, and
can only be attained with a large experience of life. And the
confounding of these two so widely diflFerent subjects together,
produces the confusion, so often witnessed, and which has been,
and still is, the source of so raany controversies. We cannot
find anjrthing more analogous to the relation between philoso
phy and faith, than that between physical science and the
daUy facts of life. It would not be greater folly to be unwUl
ing to see, before the theory of light is explained, than it would
be to cease all investigations into the nature of Ught, because
we can enjoy it amply, without those investigations. Since
God said. Let there be light, and there was light, theories have
c

34 PIETISM AND ITS OPPONENTS.
raade no difference in the recurrence of night and morning;
and so it will be with the inward light which Jesus has kin
dled. Faith clings to this light, rejoices in it, seeks by it;
but science explores its nature and laws. We raay argue the
sun out of the heavens, but it will keep on shining stUl. But
the theories of physical light raight possibly insist upon some
point, which to the uneducated raind might seem like deny
ing the very existence of that light. A representation of God,
an unused style of expression regarding His nature and exis
tence, seem to the mind unaccustoraed to it, to be a denial of
His being. Therefore there ought always to be caution on
both sides. If faith is true faith, not a raere acceptance of
truths on authority, but life and experiraental piety, scientific
theology raay go on in its work, and will place no impedi-
raents in the way. Faith raust corae first, science afterwards,
but they are both in harraony; and when the mind has ad
vanced far enough, it will see that they are so; but if there
be not tirae for prolonged inquiries, yet faith abides sure, and
stands on its own secure foundation. And in the days of
which we write, the pietists ought to have been content to
judge frora their own stand-point. But they were not. The
pietists were shocked at Wolf's philosophical propositions, they
saw in thera only dangerous heresies, and the result was natu
ral that Wolf and his adherents should see in the pietists
opposers of science, stupid ignorarauses, even if not hypocrites,
afraid of the light. The reader who goes through the whole
history of that foolish quarrel, will find that passions were
roused on both sides, and that not rauch that was edifying
arose on either side, unless we except the lesson so useful for
us, to be on our guard in like circurastances.
It was the doctrine of the so caUed pre-established harmony
which first roused the opposition of the pietists, — the doctrine
which Leibnitz had fraraed and Wolf had expanded, of an
eternal attraction of raonads to one another, in accordance
with which the world was formed. The Biblical account of
a creation seemed to be put in peril by this theory, and so
did that of human freedom, although as a mere hypothesis of
the schools it did not have that danger to the Church which
was suspected to Ue in it. Francke himself confesses that in
the StiUness of his charaber he prayed to God to stand in the

PIETISM AND ITS OPPONENTS. 35
way of this false doctrine, and to ward off" the darkness of
atheism. And who can blame the pious man for this? He
and his colleague Joachim Lange, held it to be their duty to
warn the students of Wolfs errors ; and they cannot be chided
for their conscientious opposition, but rather praised for it.
This was their error, that out of short sightedness they under
took to check what they feared, by raeeting it with statutes
and the restraints of law.
The contest between Wolf and the pietists broke out openly -
at the celebration of the laying aside of the Protectorate of
the University of Halle. Lange had been appointed his succes
sor. Wolfs address on retiring was on the ethical teachings
of Confucius, which he set very high. The rigid theologians
inferred that he tacitly irapUed a depreciation of the Christian
etldcs, and an unseemly exalting of heathen ideas, and called
Wolf to an account. This he did not care to give, or rather
he did not wish to acknowledge any dependence upon the
theological department, and contended for the privilege of
perfect freedom of speech on his own field. MeanwhUe one
of the theological faculty had carried the matter into the pulpit,
and had begun to rouse the popular mind. This did not
bring Wolf into any better frarae of mind. The larger num
ber of students sided with him, many out of their vanity, for
students generally rank themselves under the banner of those
who introduce startling novelties. And so pietisra came very
rauch into ridicule araong the students ; controversies arose
and a great deal of hard feeling. The new rector was received
in the most insulting raanner, and he had to bear much con
tumely from the phUosophical students, and most unjustly
too, for Joachim Lange, with all his one sidedness, was a learned
scholar, and a devoted servant of the gospeL MeanwhUe the
contest went on, and was at last carried so far that Wolf re
ceived his dismission. The manner in which Frederick William,
whose feeUng towards men of learning we have afready seen,
was set against him, is not a pleasant tale to tell. The very
wrong, to which we have so recently aUuded, of cuUing from
any phUosophical system, special detached sentences or pro
positions, and making them irreconcilable to common sense, or
absolutely ridiculous, was done to Wolf in this affair. It was
said to the king, whose weakness for huge soldiers is well

36 PIETISM AND ITS OPPONENTS.
known, that if Wolf's doctrine of pre-established harmony
were to becorae popularly received, his grenadiers would de
sert on account of its being predestinated that they should do
so. This raoved the king more than any other argument
could, and he issued in 1723 the following order : — " Whereas
we have been inforraed that Professor Wolf has been engaged
through lectures and publications in diffusing objections to the
Christian religion, and whereas we are not inclined to bear
longer with the sarae, but are firmly resolved that he shaU be
dismissed from his office and be not permitted to teach ; we
do liereby order that within forty-eight hours frora the receipt
of this, he leave the city of HaUe and all our dominions, under
PENALTY OF DEATH."
Such a result even Wolfs most bitter eneraies had not ex
pected. Lange felt deeply grieved at it. He hiraself tells us
that for three days after hearing the tidings, he could neither
eat nor sleep. And we can readily iraagine how his con
science raust have wavered between theological zeal and
natural feeling, a struggle which goes hard with every sound
nature. Nor did aU cease with the banishment of Wolf, King
Frederick William forbade the reading of atheistical writings.
Wolfs included, under a heavy penalty, and disallowed, under
a penalty heavier yet, the delivering of any lectures on the new
philosophical system. It is singular that the Jesuits, who
were the ffrst to take up Kepler when he was proscribed by
the Protestants, were the first to side with Wolf ; and they
^ not only allowed his writings to pass unconderaned, but it
was a Jesuit who first proposed that he be raade a baron.
After the great uproar that was made, one would suppose
that Wolf's doctrine was either really atheistical or at least
highly sceptical; but whoever will take the pains to run
through his writings will find in thera a degree of religious
soundness which would be creditable to many an orthodox
man of our own times. The orthodox theologians became in
fact the most firm adherents to Wolf's doctrine. We must
admit, indeed, that his system was not specially adapted to
Christian edification ; it was too hard, meagre, dry, and stiff
for that ; but that is not the question ; it was neither athe
istical nor unchristian. And had it been this, still it was not-

PIETISM AND ITS OPPONENTS. 37
for true Protestants to try to keep off its evil, by resorting to
the discipline of prison walls or banishment.
After his banishraent frora Halle, Wolf found an honourable
position as professor at Marburg ; and later Frederick William
regretted the act which drove him from his dominions. It
was the pious, raild Reinbeck in particular, of whose high
Christian character we spoke in connection with the king,
who espoused Wolf's side, and was raainly instruraental in
procuring a change in the raonarch's raind regarding the great
phUosopher. Reinbeck had studied his system, and gradually
approached Frederick William, till at last he entirely won him
over, and incited to great efforts to induce Wolf to return to
Halle. But aU in vain. Large pecuniary oflfers did not
move him. The memory of threatened hanging was too fresh.
When Frederick II. ascended the throne and the epoch of
toleration had arrived, Wolf consented to return, and entered
HaUe in triumph. This event occurred in December 1740.
Wolf himself has given us an account of his reception. " A
great number of the students had rode out to welcome rae
and to escort rae, with six postillions all heralding my ap
proach. In the viUages nearest to Halle there were crowds
of the people who had gone outside the gates to meet rae.
The streets were full as I entered the city, and I advanced
through shouts on every side. On the street where ray house
was there were trumpeters and cymbal players, who greeted
me noisily on my approach, and there was such a concourse
before ray door that I could hardly alight and raake ray way
to a private room. The next day I received calls from the
nlagistrates of the city and the professors, among whora was
Dr. Lange who treated me with raarked courtesy, and whom
I received in an entirely friendly spirit."
Glittering as was this reception, the day of Wolfs glory
was over. But the best period of the HaUe pietism was also
over. And yet this pietistic direction, incomplete as it looks
in this early period, and running counter as it does to many
good moveraents, is worthy of our study. It is now more
than a century since Wolf returned to HaUe, and he and his
opponent Lange shook hands together (though rather coldly)
and yet we see the same hostiUty between philosophy and
faith. Indeed the contest between a certain kind of philoso-

38 PIETISM AND ITS OPPONENTS.
phy and a certain kind of faith, is even sharper than it was
then. But there is a philosophy and there is a faith which
can go well together, and which can not only go together, but
which can mutually help and further each other, and are sup
plementary to each other. While the one kind of philosophy
and the one kind of faith draw apart from one another, and
only leave a choice between a cold, cheerless, and unspiritual
worldly wisdom and confused and light-avoiding piety, the
more gifted minds of the age are striving after a reconcUiation
of faith and phUosophy, which shall raise the forraer to the
plane of a clear and intelligent belief, and which shall find the
roots of the latter down in the subsoil of a living religious
life. And therefore we bid welcorae to every honest effort to
join those two in friendly araity and in a beneficent co
operation. We see in every such effort an advance of true
Protestantism, which embraces an increasing clearness in our
reUgious knowledge and an increasing depth in our faith.
The philosophy of Wolf, which caused so grfeat excitement
then, has whoUy passed away, and no longer reckons adherents
among theologians nor philosophers ; but the Germans have not
ceased to phUosophize since the days of Christian Wolf. One
system has been crowded out of sight by another, and with
every change the deraand for philosophy has continued
unabated. It would be very foolish to be unwiUing to look
into the history of these successive systeras, to hold it as the
idle story of huraan error, as a series of new and even grosser
deviations from Christianity. With such a hasty decision, the
labour of investigation would be rauch abridged, but one
incurs a great responsibiUty who judges of things, or con
demns them without understanding them.
One-sided as it would be to view the history of modern
phUosophy as a mere impediment in the way of Christianity,
it would be just as one-sided to view the history of Christi
anity and of Protestantisra independently of the rise of that
philosophy. We have to avoid two extreraes, into both of
which people fall, — the undervaluing of phUosophy and the
overvaluing of it. If the uneducated, little versed in habits
of difficult thought, faU into the first, those who pride them
selves on their phUosophical training faU into the second,
underrating all that has developed itself in Ufe, independently

PIETISM AND ITS OPPONENTS. 39
of the help of a scholastic system, and blind to the richness
of tha* blessing which true religion has conferred on both
the educated and uneducated, on philosophers and common
people. Systems have changed, like clothing and manners,
but Christianity has remained the same, awakening, enlight
ening, and blessing all men.
Had it been from the beginning onward the self-imposed
task of pietism to make a practical Christiauity a matter of
the heart and the life, it could not have failed to serve the
most valuable results, provided it continued true to its work.
On the field of practical reUgion was its true horae, and there
it fulfilled its mission in a time which was stormy and most
unfavourable to it.
Although the aflfair with Wolf gave a severe blow to HaUe
pietism, it did not destroy it. Halle remained, as before, the
university which, raore than any other in Gerraany, gave the
stamp to most of the theologians ofthe land. During twenty-
nine years it had sent out six thousand clergyraen, besides the
thousands who had been educated in the Orphan Institute of
Francke. This great establishraent was in the very meridian
of its usefulness, and was the prolific parent of raany others
of a similar character. And of more power stUl were the
agencies which tended in the same direction, and enlarged the
sphere of ministerial labour, the books of devotion, the spiri
tual songs now so largely known as the " Lyra Germanica,"
very many of thera composed by the pietists of that epoch, — in
one word, the daily, spiritual food which nourished Christian
families and gave them constant strength. These all corabined,
a hving ministry and a widely diffused literature, forraed a
weighty counterpoise to the sceptical tendencies of the tiraes,
and gave to the pietists a great power, which increased all
the more as the riew infidelity gained in its control of leading
and influential minds.
And, indeed, when we look back at those days, and picture
them forth as we did the reign of Frederick Williara First,
when we see the growing effeminacy and worldliness, the
change of raanners as the new French spirit struck to the very
heart of the old Gerraan nationality, when we realize the war
like epoch that followed the period of the Silesian war, and
see the calamities which carae in with that sorrowful strife,

40 PIETISM AND ITS OPPONENTS.
the trouble, the sorrow, the mdeness of raanners which gi-ew
universal, and ask what it was that kept raen's minds from
sinking, and their hearts in good cheer, that preserved the old
doraestic purity and discipline, and cherished the old spark of
the fear of God in the breast of raany a rough warrior, as the
light which, though but glimmering, yet gave some comfort,
we find that it was not the philosophy of Wolf or of any other
man, it was not the theological systera of any school, it was
not a finished literature or any fine aj-ts, frora which the com
mon man drew his religious life in those dark days, but it was
simply the high moral power of Christianity ; and this power
the pietism of that age supplied. As certain medicines have
their true time of usefulness, when and when alone they can
do good, so it seems to have been with this new development
of Christian faith. And therefore the singular fact, that the
first recognition of the value of pietism came from those who
had ridiculed and despised it before. Men who were not
approachable on any side by the new rationalizing theology,
who could not listen to any learned reflections on God and
divine things without wearisomeness, as if such things lay
beyond their circle of thought, were quickly stirred and moved
to the depths by that earnest life which was displayed in such
gifted spirits as the poets Teisteegen and Bogatsky. The
spiritual history of that time is rich in the narratives of the
conversions of noblemen and baronesses, of courtiers and
warriors, of citizens and students, of huntsmen, shepherds, and
peasants ; and although the military history of Frederick the
Great's reign does not dwell on what the power of Christ was
doing, amid all the tumult of the camp, yet painstaking hands
were not wanting, to give to us faithful records of the Chris
tian life and its fruits. Professor Arndt of Bonn, pubhshed
in 18S4, the life of an evangelical clergyman. Christian Gott-
freid Aszmann, a pastor in Hither Pomerania, from which we
could almost reconstruct a full view of pietism in the first half
of the eighteenth century. Such a Ufe, says the author rightly,
is a practical commentary on the results of Francke's and
Spener's teachings and lives. " In my childhood," says Asz
mann himself, " I have heard old raen of Francke's and Spener's
school preaching in houses and pulpits ; and the joy of a fixed,
assured faith, the cheerful and serene kindUness of a life un
disturbed by any of the storras which swept through that

PIETISM AND ITS OPPONENTS. 41
bleak and wintry age, stiU lingers like the fragrance of a
flower, and drives rae, although now old rayself, to look deeper
and with more steady gaze upon the gTcat realities which
meet rae in ray advancing pilgriraage."
And yet it raust be confessed that there was a dark side to
piejjism. It is plain that frora the first it contained within
itself the gerras of onesidedness, Avhich developed raore and
raore, and which were brought to their largest degree of ripe
ness among the imitators of pietisra. Phrases which, when
introduced, were full of tenderness and feeling, becarae by much
repetition, forraal and jejune. Controversies arose, which
instead of feeding the reUgious life, only distracted and troubled
it. Men arose, wiUing to take the part of hypocrites, in order
either to gain popular repute and further their own base ends
by an assuraption of holiness, or to gratify a love for a kind
of sensual delight in the earnest and kindling outpourings of
the pietists. L^nfortunately, the adversaries of the latter did
not care to discrirainate hypocrites fi-om consistent believers,
and rather favoured the blending of good with bad in one
mixed mass. Semler, who, though accused of a want of fair
ness, is yet a good reporter of facts, tells us that the directors
of the pietistic churches carried their discipline to the tyran
nical height of raaking a weekly register of the fraraes of mind
which all true Christians ought to experience each week, and
to inquire rigidly, whether the sequence of emotions had been
felt By every one. This offered a direct premium to hypocrisy,
and gave a truly unprotestant power into the hands of the
pietistic clergy, over simple-minded and honest beUevers.
Semler narrates the case of a brother, who, under a constant
reraorse for sin, was thoroughly unmanned and unfitted for any
kind of duty, spent his nights in agony and self-reproaches,
and was only temporarily solaced by what was said to hira.
A kind of democratic frenzy prevailed : a duke carried a num
ber of cobbler wives to sorae kind of a camp raeeting, and
drove the carriage hiraself; meetings were held in the moon
light ; pilgrimages were made ; a raorbid, isolated, rank reli
gious experience becarae the object of universal striving, and,
at last, by the confusion of aU, what began as a healthy, use
ful movement, and was eminently blessed of God, became, in
its decay, and in the second generation of its adherents, a
source of evil and a reproach to the cause of Christ.

42 THE PIONEEES OF EATIONALISM.
V.
THE PIONEERS OF RATIONALISM.
EATIONALISM DEFINED.  DEISM AND NATUEALISM. — BOLING-
BEOKE.  VOLTAIEE.  DIDEEOT.  D'ALEMBERT.  MATERIAL
ISM.  HELVETIUS  BAEON VON HOLBECK.  SENTIMENTALISM.
 J. J. EOUSSEAU.  MAELi HUBEE.  DEISM IN FEENCH AND
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
From the history of pietism we turn to that movement which
gave a distinctive name to the eighteenth century, often
known, as it is, as the century of rationalism and philosophy.
Rationalism, phUosophy, toleration, those were the catchwords
of the age.
It is singular how certain names, which, taken etymologi-
caUy, only express what is good, easily assurae a secondary
meaning, which gives them an evil sound, or a double signi
fication. If by rationaUsra be raeant a rational system of
religious doctrine, Protestantisra, and Christianity itself de
mand it. An enemy of a reasonable faith, must necessarily
be an enemy of the light, a friend of darkness. Christ calls
his own, children of the light. He bids us to keep the inner
eye of the spirit clear and open; he bids us to let our hght
shine before men, and not to hide it under a bushel. Yet it
cannot escape us that the representations of light are very
different frora one another, that one calls light what another
calls darkness, and vice versa. The mystic glories in his in
ner light, and beUeves that he walks in it, whUe the rationalist
reproaches him with groping in the darkness of mere feeling,
and praises his own system as the only bringer of light. And
BO two words sometiraes arise which have both of them a good
meaning at the outset, and the same etymological significance
in fact, yet one acquires at last a bad sound, while the other
does not lose its worth.
And so it always is. Men constantly separate what God
joined together, so that the divine and huraan, instead of be
ing reconcUed and made one in Christ, fall farther and farther

THE PIONEERS OF EATIONALISM. 43
apart, and the spiritual and worldly, faith and knowledge,
mind and soul, seriousness and sport, strength and mildness,
are always appearing as antagonists, and the medium between
them is a lost paradise, the entrance to which a cherub guards
with flaming sword. Those who assume the one have no
sensibUity for the other, if indeed they are not set directly
against it. The pietist, solely engrossed with keeping his
spiritual Ufe untroubled and undisturbed, looks with dismay
upon the advance of doubt-awaking science, and holds himself
carefully aloof from the joy and the cheer which the world
offers to him. The rationalist, on the other hand, sees in
every expression of living piety a tiraid pietisra or Jesuitisra;
in every decisive espousal of faith he detects fanaticisra, and
often busies himself with attacking, like Don Quixote, imagin
ary windraUls, in order to defend his strong posts of Reason
and Liberty.
At the opening of the eighteenth century we see these con
trasts more sharply drawn than at any other period. In
the seventeenth century pietism and scepticism joined hands
in opposition to the old orthodoxy,, but now the orthodox
and the pietists had met in close alUance to raeet the coraraon
enemy, who, as it seemed, was now about to ravage the
church. We have already seen what a movement Wolf's philo
sophy occasioned. And yet the system of Wolf was inno- ,
cence itself in comparison with that which, under the name of
deism and naturaUsm, came in from England and France, and
appeared either openly or in more covert manner, and sought
to recoraraend itself to those whose wish was to defend what
was permanent in religion, and to let only the transitory go.
In the eighteenth century WiUiara Tindal, Thoraas Morgan,
and Lord Bolingbroke, inaugurated this infidel raoveraent.
We confine ourselves to the last naraed, because he forraed as
it were the step of transition to the French deists, who worked
more directly upon the Gerraans than the English did. Bohng
broke is the real precursor of Voltaire. The earlier school of
sceptics in England gave themselves to scientific discussions
and investigations, but Bolingbroke appears a personified frivo
lity, which, under the narae of culture and reason, sought to
mount higher and higher in public estimation. In his attacks
on the Christian reUgion, he assumed a light and witty rather

44 THE PIONEEES OF EATIONALISM.
than an earnest tone. Ridicule was the weapon with which he
fought. Henry St John, his narae before he entered the peer
age, was born in 1672, of a noble family, and received his
education at Eton and at Oxford. A fine figure, handsome
manners, combining equally grace and ease, a vivacious mind,
a Uvely imagination, a charming gift in conversation, made
his fortune in the great world. By nature without self-
control, he gave way to his passions, and at eight-and-thirty
was an exhausted rake. In the place of sensuality came am
bition. As a member of the House of Commons he espoused
the tory side. Queen Anne raade hira a peer, Viscount Boling
broke, yet he raade his politics serve his arabition, and changed
his colours as circumstances demanded. After George I. as
cended the throne, Bolingbroke's career came to an end ; after
losing title and estate he fled to France, to escape trial for
high treason. This was in 1715. The Pretender appointed
hira his keeper of the seal, but later Bolingbroke renounced
his allegiance, becarae a whig, and received the royal pardon.
Still after his return to England he was raet with so much
suspicion, that he held himself aloof from public gatherings,
and conflned himself to authorship. He died in 1751, nearly
eighty years of age. He regarded religion, as Hobbes had
done before him, as merely a part of the machinery ofthe state.
Christianity and the church are only for governmental pur
poses. In consequence of his taking this low stand-point, he
arrayed himself against the freethinkers, but only for this
reason, because, by the destruction of Christianity, they took
out of the people's mouth tbe bit which their coarse nature
craved. All the religions of history he held to be the fabri
cation of priests, made for the uses of govemraent, or the
fooUsh and emptor speculations of philosophers. Man can only
know what his senses teach him, and that is what is reason
able; for the great crowd it is a good thing to have a divine
revelation, or something called by that narae. Sometimes
Bolingbroke speaks as if he beheved in the divine origin of
primitive Christianity, and only rejected the theology which,
iu the course of tirae, had been spun out of the simple truth;
but at other times he throws the mask wholly away, and
Jesus is to him at the best but a Jewish reformer, who adapted
hiraself to the Jewish prejudices when he did not himself share

THE PIONEEES OF EATIONALISM. 45
them. A rigid system is nowhere to be found in Bolingbroke.
How could this be expected from a raan who despised science
as heartily as he did religion ? Philosophy, which the other
deists set so high, was to hira a ridiculous thing, a web of
vanity. Almost everything which a pure love of know
ledge rescued from the past, he called raere useless anti
quities ; the whole east, with its rich poetry, and the whole of
the Middle Ages, that rairror of the Orient in European his
tory, was to the raeagre understanding of the Englishman a
long time of darkness and of barbarisra. The darkness and
the barbarisra were rather in his own soul, and yet such
wisdom as his was ravenously drunk up by his age. The
approbation of the so-caUed good society, as it had been since
the days of Louis XIV., was Bolingbroke's highest authority.
What was ridiculed there he ridiculed, and what he, the
aiccomplished raan of the world, ridiculed, thousands laughed
at in iraitation. The applause which Bolingbroke received
can be the more readily understood, when it is reraembered
that phUosophy and history had become merely the property
of the learned, and considered as having no connection with
life. Science took a leap from stiff pompous pedantry to a light
and attractive superficiality. Once taken thousands foUowed.
We have called Bolingbroke the precursor of Voltaire,
and with Voltaire we begin to trace the great rationalistic
movement which becarae the characteristic of the century.
We cannot give here the history of Voltaire, nor offer a criticisra
of his works. He was in one word the representative of deism
at the beginning of the eighteenth century. In our history of
Protestantism we have to look rather at the influence of Vol-
tafre over the Protestantism of Gerraany than to study him and
his character. To hira personaUy Protestantism and Catholic
ism were of equal worth; they were only various manifesta^
tions of the sarae superstitious spirit, which it was his mission
to overthrow and annihilate. He was tfred, he said, of hear
ing that it took twelve men to carry Christianity throughout
the world, he would show that it takes but one to destroy it.
The first piece in which Voltaire assaulted Christianity was
his poetical "Epitre k Uranie," published in 1728, after his
retum from England. In this production he ridiculed the
doctrines of the faU of raan, original sin, the atoneraent of

46 THE PIONEEES OF EATIONALISM.
Christ, etemal punishraent — as ideas which he could not make
harraonize with a sound reason and with a belief in a good
God. He declares thus early his hostiUty to Christianity, and
his belief that he can believe in God and yet not be a Chris
tian, and in this we see his deism in contradistinction to
atheisra. " Only a raadraan," says Voltaire, " will blaspheme
against God. I pray to Hira. I am not a Christian, but
only because I can worship God better as I am." Just as, still
later, Schiller tells us that " out of sheer religion he belongs to
no positive religion."
There was a time when Christian raen wished to bind
Voltaire's ideas with chains and put them behind stone walls,
as it were, that they might be beyond the reach of those who
would only draw poison frora them into their own veins. I
think, however, that I may say with confidence that the
writings of Voltaire do not raake the sarae impression as
formerly upon a moral and thoroughly cultivated man. Even
aside frora all that relates to reUgion and Christianity, there
is in the views of Voltaire on history, on literature, on poetry,
with raany spirited and witty remarks, a levity, there is a
superficiality of judgraent, which only repels the true thinker
and the thorough inquirer, so that when any antagonist of
Christianity arises, he only sharpens his arrow in Voltaire's
sarcasra without borrowing any weapons from him. Never
theless Voltaire's opinions have been diflfused among a large
class of men, without their reading a single word of his
seventy voluraes, or having rauch desire to go through such
a mass. They drink his spirit in frora a thousand sources,
and so corae just as speedily to his goal as if they were con
versant with his own works. But where is this adoption of
Voltaire's opinions the most general ? Not among the
thoroughly educated, not among the representatives of science,
not araong scholars and philosophers, but among that great
class of the half-educated, those people who are not in a
position to give any valuable judgraent of thefr own on reli
gious things, and who, while they are asharaed to believe in
the simple Bible, have no misgivings about swearing allegiance
to any infidel newspaper, or putting theraselves under the
guidance of any party leader. And I am convinced that a
great part of what is caUed Straussism is less the expression

THE PIONEEES OF EATIONALISM. 47
of an inteUigent appreciation of Strauss or any critical school,
than it is a mere echo of Voltaire, whose outgrown philoso
phy, only lightly covered with a thin gloss of German
thought, now exerts the same influence in lower circles that
it once did in the higher.
If, for exaraple, it belongs to a true scientific training, to
be able to transfer oneself away from the limitations of his
own raind, his own age, his own prejudices, and to live in
other tiraes and in the manners of thinking araong past races
of men, to seize upon the point of view adopted among other
people, and to pass with readiness out of the coramon world
of daily prose to the purer atraosphere of an ideal, poetical
view, as the opponents of Christianity to-day are so able to
do, we find no traces of such a power in Voltaire. We see
him putting forth his flashing witticisms and gathering
together random notes on nature and history, raaking himself
merry over the Bible as a boy amuses himself with a starling
or a floweret, making a melange of colours with his rough
hand, and taking away all the beauty ; or as he excites the
cheap laughter of his schoolraates by painting a raoustache on
sorae fine antique. Just such the skUl with which Voltaire
treats the Bible, nor does he spare the Son of Man hiraself
Everything raust be food for his raerriraent, and the grinning
jaws devour all that comes in their way.
We will not deny to Voltaire a certain acuteness and a
skiU in discovering incoherences and raistakes, which others
had unwittingly overlooked. He has called attention to
raany such in the Scriptures, to many chronological, historical,
and dogmatic difficulties, which are hard to set aside. He
has even brought to light raany contradictions which com
mentators have been perplexed about, although the most of
these he has not hiraself discovered, but has copied them from
Celsus, Porphyry, and the EngUsh deists. But what the last
named expressed with serious earnestness, he, at best an echo
of Bolingbroke, has lightly thrown out into the pubUc street,
to be trarapled under foot of aU. Take for instance his
manner of dealing with the Scriptural account of the creation.
To hira it is a matter of great difficulty that there was Ught
four days before there was a sun ! That man was raade in
the iraage of God is an idea which, more than any other.

48 THE PIONEERS OF RATIONALISM.
raises us out of the dust and gives us our glory, and yet t(
hira it is a proof that Moses raust have regarded God as a
being in human form, and he is not ashamed to add this vik
coramentary on the whole, that " probably cats conceive ol
gods in the feline shape." In reference to the tree of know
ledge of good and evil, he writes, " it is well known that tvine
raakes men eloquent, but it is not known that it raakes them
learned ; but that the fruit of a tree should confer learning —
this is a rare thing indeed." This is the current of the whole
book to which he has given the title, "La Bible enfin ex-
pliqud," — The Bible explained for the last time. We wiU not
follow lonser in this strain. But for truth's sake we must
say, that the previous experiences of Voltaire were such as to
well cause him to believe that religion was an invention of
priests and a source of intolerance. He had been educated
among the Jesuits, had learned the whole vast scholastic
theology of the Catholics, had taken legends and the biblical
history at the same time and confused thera all together.
He lacked also that quiet and comprehensive reasoning
power, which would have enabled him to discriminate the
had from the good, and perhaps we ought to add, he lacked
that simple honesty and that strict conscientiousness, without
which no one attains to truth. Protestantism he had only
become acquainted with on a. dry, hard side, as represented
by the Calvinists of France ; j'et for the more genial side, as
represented araong the genuine Lutherans, he, a man without
soul and without a quick fancy, had no adaptation. The
selfishness and vanity of his nature were a barrier to his
entering into the individuality of others. Religion he wanted
to have, but only // iis reUgion. In some passages he commends
the raorality of Jesus, but in others he heaps on it bitter
scorn. On the other hand he prided himself continually on
his belief in God. But what a God was Voltaire's! An
exalted Being, about whose existence the reason was always
in warfare with itself — a lofty cloud-inhabiting abstraction,
without heart and without love, without any fixed relations
to the world and to man, only to be sought and found by the
understanding of the learned, but not approachable by tbe
heart, raaking no manifestation of hiraself in human form,
and stUl less taking interest in the petty aflfairs of our life.

THE PIONEERS OF EATIONALISM 49
This is caUed deism, because it has no substance, but a bare
belief in God, and He, too, a distant God, a Deus, "an un
known God," as the Athenians called Him when they erected
an altar to Hira. This faith is soraetiraes called naturalisra,
because its God is only known in the ordin aiy- courses of
nature. He is debarred from any miraculous powers. This
deistic, naturalistic belief found many adherents during
the eighteenth century, particularly in France. There were
two schools of them, widely apart. There were those who
had mocking, negativing no-faith, who rejected everything
which was not plain to their common sense, and who advanced
by quick steps from deism to atheism ; and there were others
who were really filled with serious longings to know the truth,
and to test the dignity of the huraan soul, and its power to
exist without a divine revelation. The first are represented
by the Encyclopedists and their adherents, the last by Jean
Jacques Rousseau. The Encyclopedists were a school of
French writers at the tirae of Voltaire, who proposed to
aiTange and present all huraan sciences in one grand work,
which should be written in view of the wants of the popular
mind. Such a work, well executed, would have raany good
points, but it would have some bad ones. The writers raight,
if not .strictly conscientious, take advantage of the credence
given to them, to instil in the public raind opinions which
would be dangerous. The Jesuits had eraployed siraUar
means ' to impress their own distinctive ideas upon readers,
and from thera the Encyclopedists learned their skUl.
Diderot and d'Alerabert are to be named as the leading
men who instituted and carried into completion the work re
ferred to in the last paragraph, bearing the title, " Dictionnaire
universel et raisonnd des connaissances humaines," the first two
voluraes of which appeared in 1751. The spirit of these
men is not only to be traced in reUgion, but also in other
things. The men who imagine that music has its source in
our need " of raaking a noise," coiUd not have a very deep
insight into reUgious truth. Of real philosophy, that is, a
power of withdrawing the mind from the external world, and
concentrating its activities upon the world of ideas alone, they
had no conception. They were good matheraaticians, especi
ally d'Alerabert, But aU that transcended tirae and space
D

50 THE PIONEERS OF EATIONALISM.
lay beyond their province. The author of the " Systeme de la
Nature," and also Helvetius, had the same quality of mind with
the Encyclopedists. The authorship of that work has been
attributed to different persons, but it is comraonly ascribed to
the Baron von Holbach. This book, which appeared in 1770,
goes far beyond anything that Voltaire had ever written. The
latter had not atterapted to destroy the belief in God, and
among the Encyclopedists had acquired a name for supersti
tion, and for clinging to outgrown ideas, but in the " Systfeme
de la Nature," God is not treated of as a personal existence.
His control of the world is denied ; everything is ascribed to
the rankest naturalism, and aU that we call the attributes of
a huraan spirit, — justice, freedora, honour, conscience, modesty,
sorrow, are held to be only the mutual play of the senses.
Helvetius held to the same doctrines, and traced all the
noblest deeds of men to selfishness, which appeared to him
the spring of human action, and must only be held in control
by prudence. Virtue, according to Helvetius, is nothing but
the habit of so ordering our acts, that they shall be to the
advantage of the largest nuraber of raen, and the true func
tion of morality consists in reconciling in the best manner
what profits us and what profits others.
Thus deism advanced to atheism, and naturalism to mate
rialism. The fruits of this infidelity showed themselves only
too soon. Not indeed that the easy morals, which first diffused
theraselves among the higher classes, and then reached to the
common people, were the first results of these abstract theories.
Theory came in this case after practice. Long before, even in
the pious age of Louis XV., the principles which Helvetius
taught, had been largely adopted iu life, they now received
their sanction, the stamp of philosophical evidence was now
set upon them. Singularly it was a "Gerraan, in whose salon
at Paris a select circle of freethinkers chiefly assembled,
Baron von Holbach, a native of the Palatinate, the re
puted author of the Systferae de la Nature, and the publisher,
through his wealth, of raany such works. It is not our pur
pose to look into these productions here. We pass over
Condillac, and the raen of that class, and turn to the man
in whom deism displayed itself in a raore earnest and
serious raanner, who sought to raake of it a real religion, and

THE PIONEEES OF EATIONALISM. 51
whose soul was full of it, even to fanaticism, Jean Jacques
Rousseau. If Voltaire, as well as the Encyclopedists, had their training
in the bosom of the Catholic church, Rousseau stands nearer
to us, from the fact that he was a son of the city which was
the raother of French Protestantisra, Geneva. His life is well
known to us frora his own " Confessions." W^e learn frora
that book, that although born of Protestant parents he went
early to a Catholic church, but afterwards returned to the
Calvinists, although the system which he framed was just as
far from Calvin's dogmas as .it was from the creed of Rome.
On its negative side, in its denial of all historical authority in
religion, in its view of the Bible, the ideas of Rousseau agreed
entirely with those of Voltaire and the other deists ; but not
in what would be substituted in place of what was denied.
Here he stood in coraplete contrast to them, and in no
special alliance with thein, he despising thera as rauch as they
ridiculed him. What they put great value upon, a glittering
career in the world of fashion, was to Rousseau, until his
death, a most unattractive thing; and while tbey set their
hopes of their age, and the regeneration of the world on what
they called science, fine art, and general enlightenment, he
held to a return to simplicity, to nature, even to barbarism.
It is singular that here the decided deist -strikes hands with
the most rigid pietists, who saw in science and the highest
mental culture only peril for the moral life, although the
results which foUowed these narrow premises were different
in both cases. The mass of the French freethinkers were
materialistic, but Rousseau was a thorough idealist; and
whUe the forraer sought a kind of epicurean delight in refining
tbeir pleasures, the latter sought, Uke the Stoics, to make
himself entirely independent of what ministered to sensual
deUght, and to pay no regard to the opinions of men regard
ing him. Certainly more in theory than in fact ! For in
getting a real mastery over himself in a Christian sense, or
even in a stoical sense, he made no great progress. What
Christianity would gain through the love of our feUow men,
he would attain through hatred to them and a dark fanaticism.
And with aU his eflforts to be the servant to none, he remained
his whole Ufe long the servant of his, own whims and pus-

5 2 THE PIONEEES OF EATIONALISM.
sions. His own confessions, his doraestic life, reveal this most
clearly. But so far as it is possible to pass a favourable judg
ment on the principles of a raan, viewed frora his own life,
we raust do justice to Rousseau's theory, and confess that it
proceeded frora a raore noble desire than did that of Voltaire
and his friends ; and though it is not free frora great errors, yet
it ia more adapted to promote the aims of an eamest and an
aspiring mind, than the sophisms of Holbach and Helvetius.
In his Emile, Rousseau has propounded a scheme of educa
tion, containing some novel views, but rauch that is worthy
of consideration ; but in his work called Confessions of a
Savoyard Vicar, he has expounded his religious faith. In it
we see the sharp lines of separation between a strict deism
and atheisra, or materiaUsra, on the one side, and a positive
Christian faith on the other. In antagonisra to the former,
Rousseau makes his vicar affirra in the raost eloquent terms
his belief in the spiritual part of raan, in his higher destiny, in
a divine Providence and governraent. A denier of God and a
denier of the soul, is in Rousseau's eyes a raan to whom is
lacking one leading sense; and while Diderot leaves to a man
born blind the advocacy of his scheme, Rousseau compares an
unbeliever to a deaf man, who only sees the vibration of the
string without knowing anything of 'the dulcet sounds which
it is giving forth. Man, according to him, is a free being,
and is accountable for his acts. Not God and Nature, but he
himself, is responsible for his suflferings. What Schiller said
later in his harraonious verse, —
" The world is everywhere a perfect thing.
Where human discords no confusion bring,"
Rousseau expressed in his neat French prose: God, the eternal
God, can only wiU what is right. Do thou, man, do what
thou knowest good, and thou wilt be blessed in it. Desire
not thy wages before thy service, God owes thee nothing. In
another world everything will be raade right, there a great
systera of comjiensation wiU be revealed. Let the contradic
tion between soul and body be ended by death, and the rid
dle of our being wiU be solved. Thus Rrasseau declared his
belief in personal freedom, in immortaUty, in a Beyond, at
which the materialists all flung their ridicule. With tbe

THE PIONEEES OF EATIONALISM. 5 3
pietists, he regarded the union of soul and body as an unna
tural one ; the soul is in a prison, and wiU sometime be free ;
it wiU first breathe that air of heaven when, freed from this
body, it shall arrive at its home. To link the destruc
tion of the soul to that of the body as the materialists
do, would only be true phUosophy, if soul and body were
connected in that close and inner sense, which the leaders of
this school have taught. But the soul is the true raan, on
which the body hangs as a heavy weight, and therefore the
man only half Uves while here in the body ; his true life does
not begin till the Pysche freely unfurls its wings and sails
away frora earth. Regarding the raanner of our future ex
istence we can know nothing. The highest happiness which
a reasonable raind can ask for itself, is, that instead of receiv
ing any reward, it may know God and live conformably to
its own nature. For the rest we have our judgment pro
nounced upon our actions in our own souls. The conscience,
the law of nature, which God has not denied to the raost
savage tribes, and which seeras raore fresh and outspoken with
these than with the educated and accoraplished, is a heavenly
voice, the safest guide that we have to follow in the dark
course of life. Through the conscience we are exalted and
made like to God. The conscience transcends all far-reaching
ethical speculations, and makes needless all the discussions of
philosophers. Yet not aU know the voice, but all ivish to
know it ; for it is a soft and gentle voice, and is easily drowned
by louder ones. Yet it never dies wholly out, it always sounds
forth its appeal to enter on the battle of Ufe, where alone is
the field for virtue. And this battle is one of the sad condi
tions of our human lot.
These are the fundamental principles of the so-called natu
ral reUgion, as the Savoyard priest lays thera down, speaking
for Rousseau in direct antagonism to theory, which ascribes
everything to accident, to the senses, to selfishness. God,
Freedom, and Immortality, constitute the holy triad of Rous
seau's reUgion of reason. And who would not prefer such a
faith, to that comfortless faith of the Encyclopedists, degrading
mau to a mere brute? A question arises indeed, naraely,
whether this desire of Rousseau retains all that the Christian
religion gives to its disciples ; more than this, whether such

5 4 THE PIONEEES OF EATIONALISM.
a faith would be conceivable without Christianity and with
out a revelation ; or whether, on tbe contrary, these views
he so decisively set forth, and with so much apparent convic
tion, are not, after all, the reflection of the light which we
owe to Christianity, and which Rousseau had received in his
youth, without giving due credit to its source.
After the vicar has laid down the first principles of natural
theology, he comes to speak of a revelation. Here, too, we
meet a kind of language entirely unUke that used by Voltaire
and the Encyclopedists. It seeras as if the recollections of his
childhood came back afresh upon him, and wrung from him
a confession of their truth. His words about Christ are well
known. He compares hira to Socrates, — " but what a differ
ence," he says, " between the son of Sophroniscus and the son
of Mary ! Socrates dies with honour, surrounded by his dis
ciples, hstening to the raost tender words — the easiest death
that one could wish to die ; Jesus dies in pain, dishonoured,
mocked, the object of universal cursing — the raost horrible
death which one could fear. At the receipt of the cup of
poison Socrates blesses him who could not give it to him
without tears ; Jesus whUe suffering the sharpest pains, prays
for his raost bitter enemies. If Socrates lived and died hke
a philosopher, Jesus lived and died like a God." Of the his
toric truth of these, even Rousseau is entirely persuaded. "Such
an event," he says, " is no invention of men." The history
of Socrates is not so credible to him as the history of Jesus.
They who deny it, he thought, only increased the difficulties
of the case. " It would be raore incredible," remarks Rousseau,
" for a nuraber of raen to fabricate such a book, than that it
should contain the account of a real life. No Jewish wiiteis
assumed the tone, none expressed the raorality of the gospel.
It has such striking marks of truth, such inimitable marks,
that the writer of such books would be a greater wonder
than their hero." But now coraes the other side. This very
gospel is so full of things which are incredible, which repel
the reason, that no inteUigent man can accept it.
This continued and unsatisfied doubting had for Rousseau,
according to his confession, nothing painful. His belief in
the truths of natural theology remained unshaken, and so too
did his reverence of Christ, although the acceptance of a Be-
velation was never assured him. All religions he regards a»

THE PIONEEES OF EATIONALISM. 5 5
so many helpers of mankind, and they recommend theraselves
to different peoples according to their geographical conditions
and the extent of their inteUectual and spiritual cultivation.
The raain point with every man should be, to accept that faith
which best answers the needs of his own conscience. True
worship is not that of the head but that of the heart. It is
this last which expresses itself in every outward form and which
brings a blessing. And so the Catholic vicar confesses, that
since he gained this heart religion, he officiates at all the rites
of the church with raore true satisfaction than ever before.
Everything now has for hira life, significance ; everything
becomes the symbol and the expression of some unspeakable
feeling. He has become zealous in his work, full of love,
patience, huraility, happiness, and contentraent.
Sorae years before Rousseau, in 1788, Maria Huber, a Gene- ,
van by birth, but a resident of Lyons, had published her letters
on the " Essence of Religion," in which she traced all religion
to the raoral necessities of the heart, and considered a Revela
tion as a mere auxiliary to natural theology, a means of inter
preting it to our consciousness. Natural theology, as given
to us in the conscience, is the beginning and the end of all
religion, and it is for raan to attain to its full possession. To
aid in this, Revelation, i.e., the historical statement of natural
theology, has its function. But Revelation only attains to its
true purpose when it leads, unfolds, and stimulates, but is not
an indispensable thing ; and as no teacher fulfils his highest
duty when he puts into his scholars' hands the tasks all cora
pleted, so revelation does not commit to unreasoning minds
God's great lessons all wrought out into elementary principles.
God needs no service of raen, no honour frora us. Always
happy in hiraself, he wishes only the happiness of his crea
tures. That is the goal of all religion. God can receive no
injury frora men ; the iraraoral man injures only himself,
when he degrades himself, and, therefore, God cannot be angry,
he cannot punish eternaUy. Neither our own nor others' good
works raake hira coraplacent towards us, but everything which
we have is the gift of his free grace, or to use sirapler language,
of his good will towards men. This doctrine is the central
truth of Christianity and of the Scriptures, but men must
separate the husk from the kemel, and only retain the latter.

.56 THE PIONEEES OF EATIONALISM.
Thus fiir Maria Huber. And who will not confess that this
mild and kindly faith, full of love and good- will, has not some
thing attractive in it, corapared with the stiff, and cold, and
daranatory orthodoxy with which she had to deal. And when
we look back over the systeras of Rousseau and Maria Huber,
can we fail to see that there manifests itself in them a desire
to attain, in the lack of what is merely historical and tradi
tional, something real, something living. In Bolingbroke and
Voltaire we have seen a deisra which, with hatred and scorn
of all that is Christian, yet recognised a personal God, a Being
exalted, but without any action upon or relation to the heart
of raan ; a pirre religion of the understanding, which, in the
author of the Systeme de la Nature, and the Encyclopedists,
issued in pure atheism and materiaUsra; but in Rousseau and
Maria Huber, there comes to light a deism united to human
feelings, in syrapathy in some respects with Christianity, and
in other respects antagonistic to it. AU of these views have
found acceptance with the raore cultivated classes of the Euro
pean world since the raiddle ofthe eighteenth century. Men
had tired of the old strife between Catholicisra and Protest
antism, between orthodoxy and pietisra. The hostile parties
having fought to nakedness, what wonder that there should
be a wi.sh for something newer and raore satisfying? And it
is noticeable in this view, that in the very countries in which
the deistical tendencies showed theraselves, the old churches
had sunk into decay and feebleness, and had little to offer.
Neither the Church of England nor the Catholic clergy of
France, having no raore a Bossuet or a F^ndlon araong their
nuraber, could interpose barriers to these tendencies. Puri-
tanisra on the one side of the channel, and Jansenism on the
other, were exhausted, and Protestantisra in neither country
had any great naraes to point at among the living. Even
Genevan theology was not, in the times of Rousseau and Maria
Huber, what it had once been ; the mildness and the conci
liatory spirit of an Osterrald and a Turretin, could not stem
the newly-rising streara. And so deisra soon gained control
of literature, and Pope, Swift, and others, only diffused it
wider, using the effective channels of satire, didactic poetry,
and light periodicals. History, which Bos.suet had treated
solely from the theocratic stand-point, was subject in England

FEEDEEICK THE GEEAT AND HIS AGE. 57
to the raethod of Hurae, in France to that of Montesquieu, and
was then given to the great susceptible public. A free raan
raust be free from all authority, his judgment must be unfet
tered by any tradition, and all the past raust lie as a wreck
at his feet, useless and unused !
In Gerraany a raore definite reraainder of the old historic
Christianity existed than elsewhere, as our brief account of
pietisra has shewn. Yet the one-sidedness of the pietistic
theology, the multiplicity of sects, showed that a crisis and a
change were at hand. Great raen were rare among the Ger
man theologians, and so the imported deisra soon swept through
the rifts of the church, and gained suprerae control of liter
ature. And it is Frederick the Great who coraes before us as
the representative of Voltaire's ideas in Gerraany, and who
therefore raust rightly interpret his age to us as his father has
already done for his.

VI
FREDERICK THE GREAT AND HIS AGE.
We purpose to present Frederick the Great as the representa
tive of his times, after the same manner in which we portrayed
Frederick Williara First as the representative of his own. It
is not the victor at MoUwitz, at Rossbach, and at Leuthen,
upon whora we wish to look, but the philosopher of San-Souci,
the fiiend of Voltaire, the author and the king, so far as his
authorship and his royalty were related to religion and eccle
siastical affairs. We raust hold ourselves strictly to these limits,
if we wiU not wander too far frora our purpose. Yet with
aU the Uraitations which we will lay upon ourselves, we can
not wholly pass over the youth of Frederick, because it off"ers
to us the key to his whole subsequent career. It only proves
the tmth of what a noted preacher of BerUn afterwards said,
" The ship was so heavily laden with religious ballast, that
it was not possible that it should not go down."
In speaking of his father, we have already spoken of Fre-

58 FREDERICK THE GREAT AND HIS AGE.
derick's education, or rather of the plan according to which it
was conducted. We need only refer to the compulsory prayer
which he repeated every raorning, and the rigid orthodoxy in
which his young heart was so strictly drilled. To complete
that picture I need only say that the prince was often com
pelled, by his father's command, to learn by heart and repeat
penitential psalms, and extracts frora the Catechism, as a
punishment for youthful indiscretions.
We leave behind us the boy Fritz, for whose welfare these
weU-intentioned arrangements were made, and look into the
fifry eye of the young man. We regard hira in quite a dif
ferent light frora that in which his father saw hira. He dis
cerned in Frederick only a weakling, a mere flute player, " a
fifer and poet," useless for war or for a throne; and that set
the father's heart against hira. He blamed him because he
took no delight in hunting and in meeting with the tobacco
parliament, called him a selfish bad spirit, who lived only to
oppose his father; an effeminate rascal, without the pluck ofa
man; a proud, imperious, hating, exclusive, and aU this after
the prince had wiitten an humble, filial letter to his father,
and assured him of all a son's love and dutiful respect. The
animosity of Frederick William to learning, when it did not
stand in direct relation to practical life, has been already
referred to. The prince raust be triiined on the same prin
ciple. But the son shewed an inclination for everything which
aided culture, taste, and enlightenraent, and early displayed a
receptive raind, as did also his sister Wilhelraine, afterwards
the Countess of Baireuth. His friends were chosen after his
own tastes. Quand t, the flute player, and Lieutenant von
Katte were his most intimate companions. It was the last,
whose tragic fate was so closely woven in with the fortunes of
the Prince Frederick, who, in order to escape from the in
cessant and even public harshness of his father, formed a
plan to fly to England, in which von Katte was accessory.
Through some mishap the design was' disclosed ; the prince
was arrested, and barely escaped his father's dagger, who
had drawn it in his first rage, by an officer thrusting him
self between him and the prince, and saying, " Sire, strike at
me, but spare your son." Frederick and Katte were tried
before a court-martial. The decision was favourable to the

FREDERICK THE GREAT AND HIS AGE. 59
prince, but it decided that the lieutenant be dismissed from
the army, and be imprisoned for Ufe. But this decision was
too mUd for the king. Although he was not accustoraed (he
wrote to the court) to complain of lenient verdicts, and to try
to get them made more strict (which was not quite true), yet
in this case he must say. Fiat jw-stitia et pereat mundus: In
perfect justice Katte ought to be torn apart with hot irons,
yet out of regard to his faraily, he would be content with his
simple execution by beheading. The king was very sorry, but it
was better that he should die than that justice perish frora
the earth. Such was the monarch's decision, and in addition
was set the cruel clause that Frederick raust be the witness
of his friend's death; it occurred in 1730. Katte was
twenty-two years old, the prince but twenty. The latter
remained in close iraprisonraent by the king's order. To be
strictly watched, his warders being under fear of death if they
showed hira any cleraency, to be raeagrely fed, to be denied
all society, and even paper and ink, and a dread of even a
harder fortune yet, if his father's caprice should dictate it, was
his hard lot. But for the soul of the young man, the king
made excellent provision. The Lutheran chaplain MiiUer was
ordered to expound to him the word of God, ahd to warn him
to repent of his sins. Frederick paid good heed to the clergy
man's counsel, and discussed the doctrine of Election with
him, taking the Calvinistic side, and sorely perplexing his
antagonist, who spoke freely of the prince's penitential spirit,
- and so by degrees the father's heart softened. " The Alraighty
God," he wrote to the chaplain, " give His blessing ; and as he
often brings men by wonderfal paths into the kingdom of
Christ, raay the Saviour give his help, that this wretched son
may be brought to a pense of his unworthiness, his godless
heart be touched, softened, and changed, and he be torn out
of Satan's claws." On Frederick's taking an oath, without
any reservation, he was released frora his hard imprisonment.
He sealed the oath by a public acceptance of the Lord's Sup
per. Still he was obliged to remain in Kiistrin, and be under
spiritual charge. The morning and evening pra3'ers raust, by
the king's order, still be kept up. The prince, raoreover, was
compeUed to pay attention to practical branches, political
economy araong thera. In another year he was released frora

6 0 FREDERICK THE GREAT AND HIS AGE.
Kiistrin, on the occasion of his sister's marriage; and soon
after, in 1733, he was himself joined in the same relation to
the Princess Elizabeth of the Brunswick family. It was as
a political convenience solely that this marriage was dictated,
and it is well known that there was never any congenial sym
pathy between the two. In the little city of Rheinsberg,
where the king gave him a home, he first began to Uve a life
congenial to his tastes. He assembled artists and scholars
about him, invited distinguished foreigners to share his hospi
talities, and in these circles, quite unlike his father's tobacco
parliament, he felt truly happy. He gave himself to study in
all his leisure hours. On the 10th of February 1738, he
writes, " I ara buried in books deeper than ever, and how
gladly would I make chase after the time which I lost in my
childhood ; and so far as I can I gather around me a group
of knowledges and truths."
y In his retireraent he jirosecuted the study of Wolfs philo
sophy, and began his Correspondence virith Voltaire, sending
hira a translation of the charges made against Wolf and the
defence, and thus awoke the interest of the French philo
sopher in the German one. Voltaire felt fiattered by these
unexpected advances of the Crown Prince, while Frederick
conceived a new adrairation of the author and wit. "Nothing
is wanting here in Rheinsberg," he writes to Voltaire, " to
raake my happiness coraplete, but you. Your portrait adorns
ray Ubrary ; it stands directly over the case which holds my
Golden Fleece, and your works, and exactly opposite to the place
where I sit, so that I can have you always before me." He
writes to hira again, 1739: "There are but one God and
one Voltaire in the world, and God had need of a Voltaire to
be the ornaraent of this age." " Were I a heathen," he says
again, " I would worship you under the name of Apollo :
were I a Jew, I would assign you a place beside the kingly
Prophet and His Son ; were I a Papist, I would make you
guardian saint and my father confessor: but as I am no
one of these, I can do no more than content myself with
admiring you as a philosopher, loving you as a poet, and
honouring you as a friend." This style of advice, which
sounds like what we caU in this day the worship of genius,
and frora which the truly Christian spirit shrinks, and which

FEEDEEICK THE GEEAT AND HIS AGE. 6 1
is not too hardly conderaned as frivolous and idolatrous, we
can only coraprehend and excuse by recalling the sad history
of the Prince's childhood. It is the spirit of youth, breaking
away frora its fetters, and exulting in its freedora, as the
horse staraps on the ground when fi'eed frora the constraints
of the stable, and snuffs the free air in a wild Uberty. In
Voltaire, Frederick worshipped an idol, but behind this idol
he really paid unconscious adoration to the Unknown God- —
to the spirit of a new age — an age for which he was prepar
ing the way, and which, through a thousand battle fields,
must come to a clear knowledge of itself That the issue
must be diff'erent from what it was in Frederick- William's
tirae, is plain. What better thing should corae, Frederick
could not know nor suspect. He served raerely as the
instrument in a Higher Hand. Yet it would not be right,
with aU the Prince's fanciful admiration of genius, to reckon
him among the opponents of positive Christianity. He
expected rather to reach his ideal of spiritual freedora, of
mental breadth, and huraan welfare, through the raediura of
a raore enlightened Christianity. He honoured the ministers
of the Gospel, and asked of thera instruction in the raysteries
of their faith. He confessed to the pastor of the French
colony that liis faith was unfortunately weak, but that it was
his earnest desire to strengthen it, and to see decisive proofs
of the truth of Christianity ; and, like all the better Deists,
he confessed his admiration of the moraUty revealed in the
GospeL He was so deeply affected by the preaching of an
aged French minister, Isaak de Beausobre, a learned and
clear-minded man, that he showed him pa^rticular attentions.
He had a great respect for Reinbeck, his father's chaplain.
He read with great eagerness the works of the great French
preachers, Flechier, Bossuet, Massillon, Bourdaloue, and the
Protestant Saurin. Yet it was the oratorical power, the
logic, the moral eleraent and the principles of universal reli
gion, which most attracted him. The strictly Christian
phases, which had appeared so decisively in the Reformation,
and (though rather one-sidedly) among the pietists, had no
charm for bis mind, struggling for what was broad, general,
cosraopolitan. The time had not come when a sense for
what is strictly Christian and for what is thoroughly human.

62 FEEDEEICK THE GEEAT AND HIS AGE.
could be joined in the same person. Since the death of the
old Protestant orthodoxy, there was left to an earnest, vital
soul like his, only a choice between a rigid pietism and
deism. Half-way raeasures were foreign to his nature, and
it was not his calling to organize a third system of doctrine.
He was a warrior, not a theologian. So he made his decision
for deism, and was coraraitted to it wholly when he ascended
the throne. Yet Frederick the Great coraprehended perfectly
his caUing, as a descendant of the Great Elector, to be a Pro
testant king. When he transferred the bones of his ancestors
to the crj-pt of the new cathedral of Berlin, in 1750, he had
the coffin of the Elector opened, took up the withered hand,
covered it with tears, and said to those who stood by, "Mes
sieurs, that raan did a great work ! " Yes, he did a great
work for the Church of Christ. And although we cannot
say so eraphatically of the great-grandson that he did a great
work, in its direct relations to the Church, yet we cannot
exclude that wide-reaching influence which he did exert for
the history of Protestantism. Not through a positive faith,
but from a political position which he assuraed, as counter
poise to the CathoUc powers of Europe, Frederick's place in
history was thoroughly Protestant. He it was who set
Prussia at the head of all the Protestant interests of Germany.
And without him, who can tell how Protestantism would
now stand ? And his labours in behalf of personal freedom
and toleration, his abolishing of the rack and other cruelly
severe modes of punishraent, as well as raany abuses in
governraent, — his restoring Wolf to his Chair at HaUe, and
raising philosophy to its rightful place, — all these things are
worthy of a place in the life of a Protestant king. The
injuries which his secular and soraetimes unchristian manner
of thinking diffused among the higher orders of society, we
will not dispute ; but these injuries were transitory, and
were neutralised at a later day by the counter movement,
whUe the benefit which accrued from his victories, and many
of the institutions which he established, and his wise regula
tions, have remained, and we ought to rejoice in them.
The great care of the king was for universal freedom of
conscience. Did Frederick- William I. burden the Lutheran
clergy of his tirae by forbidding the wearing of surplices, the

FEEDEEICK THE GEEAT AND HIS AGE. 63
lighting of candles upon the altar, in order to proraote eccle
siastical union, Frederick II., soon after ascending the throne
in 1740, issued an order freeing the Churches of this burden,
and leaving open to theraselves and their rainisters to adopt
whatever forra of service they might choose. The Lutheran
preachers praised him, therefore, as a second Solomon. He
exhibited the same tolerance to the Catholics. In the suraraer
of the year when he ascended the throne, a petition was made
to him for permission to found a school for the children of
Roman Catholic soldiers. Upon the raargin of this petition
he wrote, " AU religions must be tolerated, and the authori
ties must only see to this, that one sect does no harm to any
other, for every man must get to heaven his own way." And
so he gave to the Catholics a larger measure of freedom than
they had ever enjoyed before. He took their church in Berlin
under his own protection, and erected for it the edifice which
it continues to use, which was built iu iraitation of the Pan
theon in Rorae, and which is one of the chief architectural
beauties of the Prussian capital. A professorship of raedicine
was vacant in the University at Breslau, and the candidate
was not only a CathoUc but a supposed Jesuit; yet an old
regulation only allowed a Protestant to fill the place. " No
matter about that" said Frederick, " if the raan is skilful, but
the physicians are too good doctors to need a religion."
Yet .with all his tolerance of the Catholics he was careful that
they should be just as patient with the Protestants as the Pro
testants should be with the Catholics. In a letter written in
1756 to the Bishop of Breslau, he expressed his decisive wUl,
that all controversial serraons should be forbidden in churches
and convents. The forbearance of the king went yet further,
he gave the Greek Christians a place for worship in Breslau,
and he shewed the sarae favour to the Unitarians in Lithu
ania, and in East Friesland. He laid no opposition on the
efforts of the Moravians and kindred organizations. All that
was iraposed was, they should be quiet, and not try to pro
selytize. The grand principle which he laid down for his
conduct in all these raatters was this, to shun the disturbing
of people who were satisfied with the sect to which they be
longed, by showing that you have such a regard for thera as
even to compel them to abandon their errors through the

64 FREDERICK THE GREAT AND HIS AGE.
strong arm of the law; since experience has always shewn
that when people are dealt with compulsorily in matters of
belief, they grow more opinionated than ever, become fanatics,
and eome at last to fancy that there raust be something very
wonderful in what has to call out the powers of the state to
repress it. On the other hand, when such people are let alone,
are shown that they are worth no attention, that they deserve
pity rather than contempt, if the govemment only look to it,
so far as to make the leaders leave the land, and see that the
followers only discharge the duties of good citizens, they gene-
rallj' become ashamed of their folly, and either come hack, or
raake no irapression on the rainds of others, and see no growth
to their ideas. So when in 1743 a carpenter was accused
before Frederick of preaching at the corners of the streets, the
king said, " If he does nothing against the laws and good
raorals, let him preach."
Yet it was a very easy thing for Frederick to enjoin tolerar
tion, for he had no conception of the power of a real spiritual
life on the one hand, nor the strength of religious hallucina
tions on the other. All those things which separate men into
sects, and make differences of theological opinion, seemed to
him to be nothing but the working out of a folly to which he
was altogether superior. And, mild as he would seem under
some circumstances, under others he expressed his indifference
to religion with a cutting severity, which pained pious and
sensitive souls as much perhaps as open opposition would have
done. In an order which he issued in 1781, with reference
to the hymn book to be used in the churches, he wrote — " In
my dominions any raan can beUeve just as he pleases. As
for the hymn book, let any one be free to sing, ' Now rest
the peaceful forests,' or any other stupid foolishness he likes.
But the priests must not forget that no perraission is allowed
thera to be intolerant." He spoke always very depreciatingly
of the clergy. He called thera parsons, even in public docu
ments, and was careful that they should have as little influ
ence as possible over affairs, and especially over education.
Theology seemed to him to be a foolish branch of study, and
the theologian was corapared to a beast with reason left out
He made incessant ridicule of the pietists, and in a manner
which did not consist very well with his vaunted toleration.

FEEDEEICK THE GEEAT AND HIS AGE. 65
There was an instance of this in one of the first years of his
reign. When, in 1745, Professor Francke of Halle raised an
opposition to the theatre, as injurious to good order among
the students, the king wrote on the raargin of the report,
" That is the work of these wretched psalra-singers. They
shall play, and Herr Francke, or whatever the rascal is called,
shall go to the theatre and make a public retractation before
the students, of his miserable meddling, and the manager of
the theatre shall be the attest that he goes and does it."
Elsewhere, he writes — "The Halle parsons must be held by
a tight rein, they are evangelical Jesuits, and not the slightest
power must be trusted to thera." The authorities to whora
was committed the aflfair of Francke, pleaded with the king
to commute the sentence, but for a long tirae he was firra ;
yet at last he yielded, and changed it to a fine of twenty
thalers, which he raust pay for the benefit of the poor ; and
Francke paid it. Had a deist been compeUed to go within a
church, or be fined, what an outcry would there have been
among the friends of toleration !
When the expressions of Frederick the Great about theo
logians and pietists are compared with those of Frederick
William about philosophers, poets, and artists, the same
roughness is remarked in both : and unlike as were father
and son in the objects of their censure and approbation, yet
there is a striking similarity observable in both, a certain
fitful and despotic humour, which can exist with a rigid
orthodoxy as well as with an assuming and arbitrary scepti
cism, but has not part in a truly Christian spfrit.
But Frederick's conduct must not be looked at too much
in detaU — the true light is only thrown upon it, when we
examine it as conditioned by the circumstances of the time.
If we look at these, and especially at the men by whom he
was surrounded, we discover that it was not Voltaire alone,
by any means, who exercised influence over hira, but that he
was on intimate terms with many refugees from France, who
had been mostly summoned from HoUand to BerUn. The
chief of these was a physician named La Mettrie, one of the
most bold and pronounced ridiculers of religion, who even
propagated a system of open immorality. The Marquis
d'Argens, who belonged to the same circle, said of him, that

66 FREDERICK THE GEEAT AND HIS AGE.
" he preached the doctrine of blaspheray with the shameless
ness of a fool." La Mettrie died in 1751 of a surfeit caused
at a dinner given by the English Arabassador to Berlin, and
Frederick honoured his raeraory by writing a eulogy, which
was read in the acaderay.
Yet while Frederick gave a horae to these French refugees
and encouraged their free-thinking, he did not seem wUling,
early in his reign, that this new tendency should reach his
own people, find expression in the Gerraan language, and
bjcome the popular belief. A Gerraan, Gebhardi by name,
had published two works in 1743, in which he attacked the
biblical miracles. By the king's comraand these books were
suppressed, and in 1748 a young raan naraed RUdiger was
sent to Spandau for six months in consequence of a like
offence. StiU the diffusion of sceptical principles could not
be prevented, and, without being published, they found
their way even raore quickly with the mighty help of ex
ample in high jilaces. And in later times Frederick put no
check on any means to spread his ideas abroad, as we leam
from the free expressions in his letters to Voltaire. These
two strengthened each other in the effort to make an end of
Christianity, or as they expressed it, " d'ecraser I'iufame."
Both wished each other success in the work ; both hoped to
live to see the time when, the strangled thing should be
buried never to rise again. And how idly tliey laboured,
how foolishly they dreamed, and how fleeting thefr triumph!
That religion, which Voltaire likene'd in a letter to Frederick
to a loaf of black bread, that at the best is only good for
dogs ; that religion still lives, and kings and wise men eat
from it, and all are satisfied with this bread of hfe, and how
rn.any have turned back hungry to this bread, after dulling
their teeth to no purpose on the old and hard-baked white
bread which Voltaire gave them ! Yet historic truth compels
me to say, in justice to Frederick, that while he combatted
Christianity, he raeant only to corabat a religion of intoler
ance and superstition ; that he pursued the ever-enlarging
shadow, while he sought the true light elsewhere, — in philo-
Rophy. Frederick held with Voltaire to a belief in a Supreme
E.xistence, in contradistinction to the atheists and the mate
rialists, while he repudiated wholly the " Systeme de 1»

FEEDEEICK THE GEEAT AND HIS AGE. 67
Nature," and even wrote a paper against it, whicii' Voltaire ,
praised. He conversed with scholars and thinkers on the
imraortality of the soul, yet he could not bring himself to
accept it fully, and held that virtue was a sufficient good in
itself even without reference to reward in another Ufe. He
once replied to a meraber of the acaderay, who wanted to read
him a long argument for the iraraortality of the soul : " How
so ? You want to be immortal. But what have you done
to deserve it?"
In the raain, it was the insufficient proofs with which men
tried to defend Christianity, and the false preraises from which
they proceeded, which called out Frederick's keenest wit and
satire. What he found fault wdth often rested upon the con
founding of what was essentially Christian with what had
been assumed by the orthodox and the pietists. In order to
get a true view of his character, we raust continually go back
to his education and to the impressions which he had received
in his childhood. A raultitude of his conteraporaries thought
and felt as he did, if thej did not speak, or if they did not
dare to speak it out as he did. We raust beware, therefore,
of misjudging the man. Nothing is easier, in our secure and
easy possession of what we have, than to fall into false judg
ments of those who, in their time and amid their surround
ings, and in altogether different mental conditions, have had a
harder road to walk than we. This comfortable cherishing
of a proud orthodoxy, while we look down upon our erring
brothers as on the firebrands of hell, without a suspicion of
the groans which the dagger of doubt has drawn from souls
struggling after the truth : this easy enjoyraent of the pillow
of an inherited faith, which brushes away old doubts as it
would brush away the flies from the body in order to slfeep
the sounder, aud then rise refreshed to attack raore stoutly
those who would gladly disturb such pleasant slurabers, this
truly is not the faith which is well pleasing to God, the faith
that " overcoraeth the world." We will not go so far as to
say that Frederick was a raan who fought great spiritual
battles for faith's sake, he was rather a hero on the field than
in theologic warfare. He was no calra, systematic thinker,
but he was no sleeper and drearaer as his father supposed him :
his was a powerful, co:)quering nature. It was only natural

68 ' FEEDEEICK THE GEEAT AND HIS AGE.
that the "elcubts which lay in the bosom of his times should
harden into graver errors in him rather than in weaker minds,
and that what began in conquering would end in annihUating.
That he sought his eneray in the wrong quarter, that he
forraed a dangerous alliance with double-minded friends, that
he pulled down where he ought to have buUt up, that he
wounded where he ought to have healed, that by the side of
the fair plants which we owe to hira he trod down the far
fairer ones, which had been so richly blessed in the reign of
his great-grandfather the Elector, instead of cherishing them,
these are faults, they are deeds of violence, they are, if you
will, sacrilege — I grant even this. But if we judge in this
(and the judgment has been pronounced in history), let us
guard ourselves from taking God's place in sitting in trial
upon men who have theraselves appealed to a higher measure
of their lives than a raere huraan verdict. Frederick the
Great shall be to us the expression of his age. God did not
set hira without a purpose in the period in which he lived.
In hira the spirit of his age found its picture, and the sceptic
ism which had long been working among the roots of church
life, come in him to the light, the smouldering spark burst
into a clear fiame.
Yet it would not be right to say that the age of Frederick
the Great was wholly represented in him, so that when we
have studied his character we have exhausted his age. We
must recognise counter currents which he hiraself had to
meet, such, for example, as the pietistic movement. But
these were rather the relics of past days, and not what
expressed the real spirit of the times. And this spirit of the
times, too, had its own modifications, and we should present
an untrue picture if we should say that deism, as held by
Frederick and Voltaire, was the reUgion of most of their
contemporaries. It certainly was not, for with only a very
few had it come to this. But we shall not lead astray if
we say, that for forty years there had been spreading over
Germany a raode of thinking which, if it seemed to stand on
the same ground with the old orthodoxy, yet bore in itself
the germs from which, although perhaps years later, tbe
deistical, critical, and rationaUstic tendency would spring.
One only needed to have eyes to see that the times were

FEEDERICK THE GEEAT AND HIS AGE. 69
changed. There raeet us other forras, other faces, other cos
tumes, other custoras, and, which is the chief thing in Ger
raany, another use of language and another literature, another
raode of educating, another way of seeing and judging of things.
With all that reraained of the past clinging to its skirts, the
age was changed, was raodemized. There is nothing raore
difficult to describe in words than a new epoch so thoroughly
made over, for that which is coraraonly caUed the spirit of
the age is seldora a definite and comprehensible thing like a
sequential system,, it is a fleeting cloud picture in which the
beams of light fall apart ere they hardly have corapleted their
image. All these varying colours do form unmistakably the
representation of an age, and, when blended, they constitute
its distinct though evanescent expression. So there are
fonned, under the influence of one great and pararaount influ
ence, a nomenclature, a method of reasoning, a style, which
exert uncontrollable influence on contemporaries, and which
even throw their spell over those who stand in opposition to
the great tendencies of the age, so that, although they may
in outward aflfairs seem to follow the old ways, in spirit they
are radically changed. As in the times of the old orthodoxy,
there was an orthodox phraseology for those who were far
removed from the Uving faith which had been the raother of
that Ijinguage, so since the middle of the eighteenth century
there has been a language of freethinking, of infidelity, which
has entered more and more into literature, for just as coins
sometiraes change their value, so do words change their mean
ing. As in the olden time, men spoke of faith, of justification, '
of sin, of salvation and sanctification, of the kingdom of God,
of enUghtenraent and grace, so in the tirae of Frederick they
spoke of virtue, honour, freedom, manhood, human right, 1
reason, and toleration. Even the language of the pulpit had
to be adapted to this new nomenclature, if it would not stand
like a decaying and deserted ruin. Only few have the power
to oppose such a stream, and to stand upright like a mossy
monument of soUd rock. Not all have a caU to do and be
this. What with one man is tme power, acknowledged power,
with another is mere caprice and foUy, and such a one raakes
himself a laughing-stock if he tries to tum or stop the current
of the ao-e. The most aUow themselves to be borne unresist-

70 FREDERICK THE GREAT AND HIS AGE.
ingly on by this current, but here and there are seen some
children of the age, and its leaders, too, who will not suffer
themselves to be swept blindly away, but who, keeping their
senses alert, let themselves be gently borne on by the tre
mendous current, but keep the shore always in sight, and
press on, accommodating themselves to present troubles, but
at last reach the distant laud. Such men are the heroes of
their age.
It has been charged as a fault on Frederick the Great, that
he, who would seera to be so specially the raan to develope
the capacities of the Gerraan literature, should have neglected
it so signally in behalf of the French. But it is not in every
one's power to detect, with prophetic eye, in the opening bud
all the beauty and excellence of the fruit which is to come:
to do this needs experience ; and there was Uttle reason for
Frederick t9 see such richness in the hard German of his
tirae. And if it was his raisfortune that he did not detect
its unopened capacities, the German literature is all the more
proud that it never had a Maecenas or a Louis XIV. to cherish
and give its authors a princely patronage. The German
Reformation, too, does not ascribe its beginning to princes,
but to the grace of God, and Luther and Klopstock can only
be proud one of the other. The history of the German
literature and poetry is intimately linked to the history of
that stirring, progressive spirit of discontent with the past,
and of hope for the future, or as I may say with the history
of religion and philosophy, — in one word, the history of Pro
testantism. One is mirrored in the other.
It is worthy of remark, in the national German character,
how the new phase which the poetry and literature of the
eighteenth century put on, was in the beginning thoroughly
reUgious in its aspect, although later it was so hostile to
positive Christianity, and so lenient to theological indifference.
What a quickening to spiritual life Klopstock's "Messiah"
gave, first pubUshed in 1748, is well known. Klopstock
reraained, in relation to religion, orthodox and conservative,
although he cast his poems in an antique Greek form, and so,
by raaking an epic of the simple gospel history, he contributed
to a more secular view of what is distinctly Christian, and thus

THEOLOGICAL SCIENCE. 71
all unconsciously gave an unfortunate bent to what he would
gkdly have retained in its old expression and purport.
It was not long before the new poetry hung to the Bible
by only a very slender cord. Gleim said openly that Bacchus
and Amor could help us sooner than Moses and Davrid. Thia
sounds, perhaps, more frivolous and wanton than was originaUy
meant. Biblical truths stood in plain antagonisra to the
fermenting spirit of the new school of letters. And so Wieland
soon laid aside the theological mantle, and began to exercise
his talents in an altogether different field than that of religion,
and in a graceful and easj' way to show himself a modern
Lucian, off'ering the keen point of his dagger to positive
Christianity. Wieland and Lessing are the two men who, after Klopstock,
opened a new epoch for German literature. Of these Lessing
has struck the raost directly and strongly at the theology of
his tiraes. In a history of Protestantism in the eighteenth
century, his portrait should not be wanting, even if we had
to pass hastily over other great naraes in tbe world of letters.
Yet in order to justify his destructive criticism, which struck
to the very marrow of theology as it existed then, we raust
first look over the field, and see the condition of that science,
as it existed during the first half of the eighteenth century,
up to the tirae when Lessing commenced his career.

VIL
THEOLOGICAL SCIENCE, INCLUDING BIBLICAL CRI
TICISM, IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE EIGHTEENTH
CENTURY.
STATE OF THEOLOGICAL SCIENCE.  BIBLICAL CRITICISM.  WETT
STEIN.  ADVANCE AFTER HIM.  MICHAELIS  MOSHEIM. 
EENESTI  SEMLEE
From our brief excursion into the doraain of general litera
ture, we turn back to the province of ecclesiastical history

72 THEOLOGICAL SCIENCE.
proper, and briefly trace the progress of theological science,
which Lessing so fiercely assaulted down to his times.
The old poleraical theology, represented in the seventeenth
century by learned and able men, had outlived its strength.
Pietisra had dealt a heavy blow at the old orthodoxy, and its
poor dried scholastlcisra, and had substituted in its place an
active, stirring, religious life. But pietisra had from the first
brought less of scientific than of practical interest to hght.
Science was to it only a raeans of appropriating for its own
use what material was useful for edification, and by means of
a skUful and even leamed study of the Bible, to put itself in
comraand of raeans for working beneficially upon the churches
as a whole, and upon individual hearts. The deeper inquiry,
which had to go through doubts to reach its end, and stabhsh
doctrine, was farther reraoved frora it, it even looked upon
such investigation with distrustful eyes.
Yet this raethod of inquiry could not be stayed. It was
awakened by all external causes. The EngUsh deists had
brought a raass of charges against the Bible, which could not
be raet by raere loudly-sounding deprecations and disclaimers.
They had disclosed a great raany tender spots, they had called
attention to the weakness of a great raany proofs ; it was de
raanded of thera that rauch that was blindly accepted should
be subjected to a new and unbiassed investigation. The ques
tion was not now raerely whether a doctrine was grounded
on the Bible, but whether the Bible itself, the sacred collection
of books, to which Protestant theology raakes its final appeals,
was worthy of reception as the last test of trath. The point
at issue was no longer the anangeraent of the books, but
what went before any possible arrangement of them, the
history of the Bible, its forraation, its fortunes, and the relar
tions of its parts to the whole.
For the Christian, who sees soraething raore in the Bible
than a mere human book, who recognises in it the traces of
the living word of God, the ground of his faith and of his
hopes, the thought is somewhat distressing to see this book
surrendered as a corpse is given to the anatomist, for every
one to try the sharp edge of his scalpel. But this dissect
ing process could not be stayed. It was for the interest cf
truth that it should be so. We cannot help seeing that the

THEOLOGICAL SCIENCE. 73
Bible has two sides, one divine, the other human. We take
hold raost readily of its divine side, and view the book in its
unity, as the one unchangeable word of God, the pledge of the
Father's love, and His gracious purposes with us, the expres
sion of the divine will to man, and the Uving witness of all
that which He was to our fathers, and of what He has been in
Christ to us. Luther and the reformers took hold on this
divine side, and every evangelical Christian raust so take it,
if his faith have a strong and secure basis. The Bible has
also its huraan, external and historical side; and Luther and
the Reforraers have taken hold of that side, too, and so raust
we, if our faith is not to faU at last into a blind and dead
worship of the letter. Coraprehended in its huraan aspect,
the Bible reveals diversity rather than unity, and appears as a
coUection of books made at various times, from various authors
and in various styles, based upon various historical relations
and circumstances, which we must study in huraan raanner if
we would understand the Bible. And then there is added
what is purely external to the subject raatter, the variations
which have corae in by copying, and the duty is superiraposed
upon the critic to ascertain the first and only true reading.
And lastly we cannot fail to observe that the Bible, like all
works of antiquity, has been viewed through various eyes, now
in a siraple childUke spirit, now with fanciful playful wanton
ness, and again with a dry prosaic common sense. The duty was,
therefore, imposed upon science, to lay down fixed principles of
exegesis, to see the Bible in its own colouring, and to understand
it from its own point of view. It was necessary to study similar
uses of language, sirailar words, pictures and coraparisons, in
other works of antiquity, especially of the East, and so by the
hold of this new lore, to set the reader in the sarae relations
to the Scripture in which they were who Uved in the tiraes
when it was given. That this manner of treating holy writ
was not only useful and instructive, but also favourable to the
furtherance of the study of the Bible, every one wiU confess,
who has himself known the difficulty of understanding it
without any help, and we will aU gladly confirra what Goethe
has said, that " the Bible becoraes raore beautiful the raore we
study it  that is the more clearly we see that every word has
received a certain distinct character, according to the separate

74 THEOLOGICAL SCIENCE.
conditions of tirae and place when it was given. We must
regard it as a beneficent Providence, therefore, that from the
beginning of the eighteenth century a new activity was mani
fested on this domain of theological science. Yet many, with
greater or less reason, saw danger in this. As in all human
affairs countless mischances arise till the truth is found, so it
is here. Some spoke of the candour of the investigation, as
contrasted with the old orthodoxy, and raany sought to attain
that candour ; but it was soon apparent that here, too, in spite
of the old narrowness in the old opinions, a new narrowness
was rising, which did horaage with equal servility to the
opinions of the present; and that if the fathers converted
apostolical Christianity into the orthodoxy of the seventeenth
ceutury, the sons were on the way of either carrying the scep-
ticisra of the eighteenth into the Bible, or of taking that away
from it which did not agree with it. Yet before we judge we
must look at these efforts to clear up biblical difficulties, and
on the threshold we raeet two raen, who were the first to
devote theraselves with remarkable success to the clearing up
of difficulties in the Greek text, and restoring it in its purity,
John Albert Bengel and J. J. Wettstein. Of Bengel's efforts in
this field we purpose to speak later, when we come to discuss
him as a man.
Wettstein was the pioneer in the work. He devoted a
long and most diligent and devoted life to the preparation of
his Greek Testament, a v/ork which is a standard yet, and
which, published in 1751, but four years before his death,
was the suraming up of the labours of his life. As a pro
fessor and preacher at Basle he met with rauch unfounded
and unrighteous opposition on the alleged ground of heresy,
and was corapelled to accept a professorship at Amsterdam,
which becarae the centre of his European reputation. His
work is still confessed to be one of the richest repositories of
biblical learning.
The critical study of the Scriptures found other represen
tatives as the age advanced. We may name as one of the
most eminent, J. D. Michaelis, who did so much to give note
to the rising university of Gottingen. He became professor
in 1745, and was constantly eraployed there untU his
death. Frederick the Great tried in vain to induce him to

THEOLOGICAL SCIENCE. 75
enter into public service. During the Seven Years' War,
Michaelis busied himself with preparations for a journey to
Arabia, which he did not raake after all, but which it was
left to Carsten Niebuhr to carry out. Michaelis confined hira
self to biblical researches. He raay, indeed, have looked at
the east too much frora his study, and so have handled with
almost pedantic fingers the rich flowers of oriental poesy, but
no one wUl deny him the praise due to vast learning. Dr.
Tholuck thinks, however, that Michaelis has done much to
favour the later neological eflforts, not by yielding to the
attacks which were made on the sacred canon, but by the
want of a true religious life, lacking which, he had but the
outer husk of orthodoxy, without its Uving kernel.
A gieater light than the indeed somewhat dry and hard
MichaeUs was Laurentius Mosheim, a clergyman of Got
tingen, a man whose noble character is just as lovely as his
leaming was thorough and comprehensive. There is almost
no doraain of theology which he did not live to adorn and
bless. Mosheira is the father of raodern church history : in
the study of morals he, for a time at least, created an epoch,
and in the history of German pulpit eloquence, a new peiiod
dates from hira. He has been terraed the German TiUotson,
the German Bourdaloue. What MichaeUs wanted in fine taste
was largely present in Mosheira, and gave to all his learned
works, as well as to his serraons, an indescribable charra.
Mosheira in faith was thoroughly orthodox, yet raild and
patient towards others, and, in this respect, really unUke
raany of that school. In his "Ecclesiastical History" he has
laboured with a candour which grants to all who differ frora
him an impartial presentation of their views, and ensures
justice to all ; he has subjected their systems to a thoroughly
scientific treatment, and in this he has been very happUy
Ukened to Melanchthon.
If Mosheim freed ecclesiastical history frora a fierce
poleraical warfare, and gave it a place as a pure branch of
science, Ernesti and Semler were the meu who sought to
make biblical interpretation independent of the creed which
had been in general acceptance. It had been, indeed, always
a fundamental principle of Protestantisra that doctrine should
be drawn from the Bible, and not the Bible raade to har-

76 THEOLOGICAL SCIENCE.
raonize with an established creed. Yet it had gradually
becorae customary to think that the doctrine of the reformers
and their successors was authoritative truth, and to accept the
Bible upon their interpretation alone. The theologian read
the Scriptures through the glasses of a dograatic system, the
layraan through the glasses of his catechism, and it was held
to be wrong to indulge in other interpretation of the Bible
than that which carae frora the fathers of the Reformation.
That was unprotestant. J. A. Ernesti, professor, first, of
ancient literature, and then of theology, in Leipzig, is re
garded as the founder of a new exegetical school, whose ground
principle was simply this : to interpret the Bible according
to its Uteral verbal sense, and to let that volurae suffer neither
at the hands of any assuraed authority of the church, nor ot
the feelings and wishes of individuals as to what they might
choose to believe, nor of a sportive and allegorizing fancy, such
as the raystics used to indulge in, nor of any philosophical
system. He adopted in this the raain principle of Hugo
Grotius, who in the seventeenth century had similarly in
trenched hiraself Ernesti was a philologist. He had
eraployed the sarae principles in the interpretation of the
writers of Greece and Rorae, which he employed later in the
interpretation of the Bible. And he was right in this ; the
Reformers had aimed to do the sarae thing. But he over
looked too rauch, perhaps, this fact, that in order to appre
hend the religious truths of the Scriptures, there is needed
not only a knowledge of their verbal and historical character
istics, but a spiritual appropriation of those truths, so that
one can enter livingly into the very heart of the Bible. Who
would deny that in order to understand an epistle of Paul
there raust not be a very different raanner of approaching and
viewing it, than would be needed with the letters of Cicero,
since the whole circle of ideas is different in the two. Reli
gious writings can only be truly apprehended by a penetrating
spirit, which can strike through the whole web of grammar
and logic to the fundaraental truth. And this certainly comes
not with a raere arbitrary and scientific dissection of the
fabric, only with a comprehensive all-sidedness on the
part of the expositor. When, therefore, Ernesti replaces a
wilful, fantastic, but often spiritually rich method of interpre-

THEOLOGICAL SCIENCE. 77
tation, comraon among the mystics, bj' a verbal, dry, and unim
aginative exegesis, it was a useful counter work, but it did not
cover the whole ground. The suspicion would easily arise
that the Bible was merely a literaiy work, and that its func
tion was merely to minister to the wants of the understanding.
There was danger that in rating the book among the Usts of
classics, the great help of the Divine Spirit, which could alone
guide the mind to its deepest truths, would be overlooked.
Ernesti himself, like Michaelis and Mosheim, was orthodox.
He even defended the Lutheran view of the Lord's Supper.
And yet these men diflfer from the older orthodox in their
strenuous efforts after independence, after mere truth, after
dry truth, if you will ; but there was in them a certain mild
ness of judgment which had been unknown to their predeces
sors. They laid out the way, without knowing it, which
leads to that theological method of thought which came soon
after them. The man in whom these later tendencies first
took a neological direction was J. S. Semler. This eminent
theologian, who has written the narrative of his own life,
deserves to be regarded with more than a passing glance, for
we see in him that this effort after what was new did not
necessarily proceed from a frivolous spirit of scepticism, but
could come from a pious and honest search after the truth.
In Semler, too, the university of HaUe recognises the man in
whom terrainated the reign of pietism, and the reign of neo
logy commenced.
Semler was the son of eminently pious parents, his father
being a clergyman, his mother a woraan of great devotion to
her children. He was early indoctrinated in the principles
of the pietists, but while he leaned very rauch towards them
in respect to spirituality, he could never sympathize whoUy
with them in their unwiUingness to study theology in its
scientific aspect. At sixteen he entered the university of
HaUe, but the spiritual conflicts which he had undergone
during his boyhood still remained, and he tells us that in his
terrible stress of mind, he has often gone out at night upon
the great square in front of the Orphan School, and in his
heart wished, " 0 that I were a lump of ice ! 0 that I were
but a piece of wood !" This contrariety in his feeUngs lasted
for a long time : he could not adopt the language of the

78 THEOLOGICAL SCIENCE.
pietists, although he leaned to their peculiar heartiness and
mysticisra. At last he began to define the liraits of theology
and religion, and to separate thera frora each other. He
reckoned many sciences within the doraain of the former,
which were needful for the preacher to understand, but which
were not essential to the soul's happiness. He beUeved that
a man might be a true Christian in heart, and yet not receive
with the understanding aU the doctrines which are revealed
to the intellect. This separation of a private religion, as he
called it, and the generaUy received theology, ran through
Sender's whole histoiy. There Ues an eleraent of truth at the
bottora of this, that is, the separation of knowledge and
belief, of that which forras the basis of every one's happiness,
and that which serves for the making clear and intelligible
the processes of the religious life, and for the exchange
and expression of religious thought. Whoever has consi-.
dered this spiritual life, raust confess that all our concep
tions of divine things, all our designations of them, are
insufficient to convey whoUy what lies in the heart. The
very language of the Bible does not bring truth in the same
guise to every one : it is variously understood : every one
interprets the Bible after his own raanner, and each takes it
home to himself according as it comraends itself to his own
necessities. One prefers the living pictures to the difficult
thought, another even translates the poetry of the Bible into
his prose. There is a great deal in this matter dependent
upon the natural constitution, the degree of culture and the
personal experience of the individual, and up to a certain
point it may be said that with a common ground work of
religious belief, yet every one has a special creed, a separate
theology, a treasury of inner experiences and views different
from those of any one else. And this is in no wise to be
regretted. A universal, objective religion, which has the same
value for all, like the formulas of mathematics, has never been
given us, and wherever there has been an attempt to fasten
such a religion of men, there has been the skeleton of a dead
conformity, rather than the Uving soul of an active and growr
ing faith. And it is only because the religion which the
Church gives us, becarae our own possession, converted into
our flesh and blood, assimilated to ourselves, yes, repeated in

THEOLOGICAL SCIENCE. 79
US and reproducing its kind, that Christianity has its greatest
worth to us. And the older school of raystics felt this, and
then after a long reign of outward conformity in theology,
Semler felt it, and so, too, I may say, did his tirae. Indeed
this modem epoch, which opened with hira, raay be character
ized as the epoch of Subjectivity ; and each one raust see with
his own eyes, and coraprehend with his own understanding,
and examine with his own judgment aU things, in the poUti
cal, literary, and religious world. That phrase of Frederick
the Great, already quoted, " that every one shaU get to heaven
his own way," was the watchword, in one sense, of the age : it
was far raore than a flash of wit. Yet even Subjectivity can
be abused, and it has been abused. The Subjectivity of the
individual can be carried to a point, at which the bonds of
fraternity may be severed, the general welfare impaired, the
higher authority which ought to rule over all personal thought,
put in peril. There is a double evU to shun : either a strong
and earnest spirit seeks to impose his own opinions on others
and exalt himself into a raagistrate of thought, or, the indivi
dual can withdraw wholly within himself, and secede from all
feUowship. The first leads to what is virtually a new papacy,
the latter to the disintegration and ruin of the Church. There
remains one way yet to be foUowed, viz., that a raan indulge
in his own private belief and yet conform in theological
speech to the common phraseology : seem to belong heart and
soul to the great corapauy of believers, and worship whoUy
with thera, yet without an inner reception of what is raeant
in the language of worship. This is assuredly the raost
dangerous way of all, because when this separation has reached
a certain point, it leads necessarily to a two-faced use of words
and so to hypocrisy : and this is what has been charged upon
Semler : who certainly was the father of what has been termed
the theory of accommodation. Yet, assuredly, Semler was no
hypocrite. He did not advance far enough along this way to
fall into the fatal error where it must, and in his successors,
did terminate ; and he lived in the hope of seeing the day
when all that was effete in the doctrine of his age should be
cast aside, and that the old language should still be the con
veyancer of this purified theology. But it was not for Semler
to accomplish a mediation between the "private religion," as

80 THEOLOGICAL SCIENCE.
he terraed it, which he held, and the general orthodoxy of his
tiraes : his was a critical, negative nature, not a positive,
creating nature. He was not the raan to breathe a new life
into theology : like Michaelis, he was too hard and dry, and
looked too much at religion from the standpoint of his study.
He tells us that when he was a boy his father attended an
auction, and bought a number of books by the foot, as they
stood on the shelves — so that when they were taken home,
there were a number of sets which contained the first but not
the last volumes. And this was in a certain sense typical of
the raind of him who studied this strange collection : there
was an incompleteness and want of grasping the whole sub
ject which prevented his ever attaining a high place, except
as a critic. He was no constructor of systeras. And yet his
Ufe, in a Christian sense, was beautiful. Few raen have lived
in a frarae of more constant dependence on God. Not an im
portant step did he take in life, without looking up for guidance.
His family was trained in a truly pious raanner, for he held
strictly to the value of a religious education. He was a man
of true doraestic turn of mind, and wrote his books with his
wife sitting by hira, and his children prattling at his knee.
His literary labours were large and various. In the history
of the early Church, he eraployed a trenchant pen, destroying
many things which had been firraly established. In the
history of doctrine he showed the variations which had crept
in with the lapses of tirae. He was the true father, indeed, of
this departraent of theology. In the study of the Bible he
felt that it was right to discrirainate between that which had
any relation to the Jewish people, thefr faith and their eco
nomy, and that which he considered had a perraanent and
eternal value. Araong the former he reckoned the views
given of the devil, and of the being possessed with devUs, and
he sought to conceive of what was said ofthe Messiah and sacri
fices from their Jewish raeaning, and to knit on to the pure idea
as it remained, the Christian conception. And yet with him
in all this effort to follow the course of dogmatic development,
and to throw aside what seemed to be the old and useless
husk, there was nothing of levity, or scom, or a bad temper:
he had a profound desire to apprehend the truth, and he always
laboured in the service of that desire. And though he limited

LESSING. 81
what was permanent in Christianity raerely to what is of
practical service in bettering the huraan race, and although he
may be rightly charged with opening the way which led to
regarding our religion as raerely a system of available practi
cal ethics, yet he had a fund of feeling in his heart, which
found little or no expression in his books, but which was seen
in his daily life, and is recorded in his biography. Tbis
seeraing discordance lasted to the end of his career. In
sympathies he grew nearer and nearer to the mystics, while
his bold negativing criticism did not cease. In his heart he
grew raore simple and childlike, but in his theology raore bold
and unsparing. He was at once a pietist and a rationalist.
He united in himself what now, raore than a half a century
since his death, has fallen widely apart, and what could not
perhaps be again united in any single raan.

VIIL
LESSING.
THE WOLFENBUTTEL FRAGMENTS.  DISPUTE WITH GOTZE. 
RELATION OF THE BIBLE TO CHRISTIANITY.  LESSING'S
NATHAN.  THE EDUCATION OF THE HUMAN RACE.  A FEW
WORDS OF lessing's FATHER.
In the doraain of scientific theology, as in that of Uterature
and poetry, we have seen, in our progress with our subject
thus far, a revolution beginning, whose results we perceive
year by year, and whose rich harvest is not yet completely
gathered. Both of these doraains lay, then, widely separated
from each other, the cleft between, no man had then been
able to span, and those who tilled the one paid no regard to
those who tUled the other. But now we meet a man who
wrought confusion both in the dramatic and the theological
worlds (using these words in the largest sense), who, with his
powerful understanding, struck into them both with great
effect, and caUed into being polemics in art as well as in

82 lessing.
religion, without bringing to us a system in either : a raan who,
in the closest sense of the word, was neither a poet nor a
theologian. He was always and everywhere a critic. Gott-
hold Ephraira Lessing, bom January 22, 1729, in Upper
Lusatia, the son of a Lutheran preacher of much piety and
of extensive historical knowledge, received when a boy an
education which was intended to be religious as well as scien
tific. His parents early taught him the iraportance of prayer
and of Bible reading ; and besides being carefuUy instructed
in all the coramonly received doctrines of Christianity, he
committed to meraory a large number of hymns, which
awakened in him early an appreciation of devotional poetry.
Yet the age of enUghtenraent, so caUed, had already begun,
and he was instracted not only what, but why to beheve.
Very early a spirit of independence was awakened in the
boy, and the consciousness of what was to be his future
sphere of life. Once, when a painter wanted to paint him
with a bird in his hand, as a boy. would appropriately be
represented, he said with decision, " No, paint me with a
heap of books around me !" At school he soon began to
raake reraarkable progress. Even there the love of indepen
dent thought was his raost marked characteristic. The cus
tomary school duties did not suffice to keep him busy, so
that the master wrote to his father, " That is a horse who
raust have a double allowance of provender. The lessons
which the others find too hard are to him but play; we shall
not be able to keep him here much longer." The hoy
acquired at school the title of "the admirable Lessing;" the
fitness of which we shall not dispute. The parents of the
youth wished to make hira a clergyraan : the raother, espe
cially, cherished this desire. But Lessing showed no inclinar
tion for this, nor indeed for any so caUed "bread science." In
Leipsig he heard the renowned Ernesti : the other professors
did not attract hira rauch. Lessing soon collected around
hira a number of young friends, who practised themselves in
poetry, and not long after, the first eff'usions of these 8.spiring
youths appeared in a weekly newspaper at Hamburg. He
was just as resolute in making his body strong and capable
of endurance, as he was to give power and edge to his mind,j
He learned to ride, to dance, to fence — accomplishmentiS

lessing. f,3
which his mother called chUdish, and which his father
declared superfluous, costing rauch, with no return. Yet to these
little cares there .was soon joined a weightier one. Araong
the friends of Lessing was one who had already gained sorae
name as a free-thinker, in consequence of his attacks on
miracles — Christopher Mylius. The intiraate acquaintance
with such a man, as weU as with play-actors, was injurious
to Lessing, and the report of his friendship was a great grief
to his parents : it tried the good mother, that her son should
eat up the cakes which she had sent him for Christmas at a
wine-supper with comedians. Lessing was too kind a son to
let his mother be tried by such acts. In the extreme cold of
winter he obeyed a suramons horae, and attempted to quiet
their doubts by his personal representations. He had long
and serious conversations with his father about theology ;
and in order to show his mother that he could become a
preacher at any time, he wrote a sermon. He remained at
home tUl Easter, and it seemed that a perfect reconciUation
had been effected. But directly after he had arrived at
Leipsig again his inclination drew him to the theatre. It
was not a raere love of dissipation which drew hira there ; it
was the desire, and I might alraost say, the calling which he
felt within hiraself, to take the drama, which was just in its
infancy, into his charge, and to raise it to the high plane of
an art. About this tirae he coraraenced his career as a
dramatic writer. In the meantirae, with the sinking of the
zeal of the Leipsig actors, his own also sunk. He left that
city and followed his friend MyUus to BerUn. But this
step excited the anxiety of his parents again. BerUn stood
then (it was Frederick the Great's tirae) at the height of its
reputation as the centre of free-thinkers, and MyUus was one
of their leaders. Lessing received a letter frora his father,
fiUed with reproaches, and ordering hira to retum horae at
once. But instead of going, he tried to satisfy his parents
by writing thera, and making thera understand that a love
for the theatre need not be inconsistent with an intelUgent
reception of ChristianitJ^ In order to give them a proof of
this, he wrote a draraa, in which he lashed the actions and
Vfotdfhof the free-thinkers unraercifuUy, and made a laughing
sjfKc of them. In sending this piece to thera he wrote also

84 lessing.
these lines, which are of significance : " Time shall show
whether he is the better Christian, who, retaining the principles
of Christianity in his memory, and often having them on his
tongue, without understanding them, goes frequently to church
and conforms to all the customs of the place, out of raere habit,
or he who has contended with grave and well-put doubts,
and has arrived at conviction through the channel of investi
gation, or at any rate, has sought to arrive there. The
Christian reUgion is no work that a raan can take from his
parents on trust. Most people inherit what they have, as
they do their property, but they show by their Uving what
kind of Christians they are. So long as I do not see that
one of the chief comraandraents of Christ, to love our enemies,
is not better observed than it is, so long shall I doubt
whether those who give theraselves out as Christians are
really such."
At the wish of his parents, Lessing, after remaining some
time yet in Berlin, went to Wittenberg, where his brother was
then studying theology, and took a Master's degree without
ever raaking use of it afterwards. Araong other things he
translated Klopstock's Messiah into Latin, in order to make
it clearer. After reraaining there a year he returned to
BerUn, where he edited a newspaper, and so brought upon
hiraself new reproaches from home. A writer for the press,
and a writer of plays, were interchangeable terras with Lessing's
father. But these reproaches soon ceased, with the growing
reputation of the son. He then let him go quietly on accord
ing to his bent. During this second stay in Berlin occurs
Lessing's acquaintance with Nicolai and Mendelssohn, who
both belonged to the deistical party, and were among its
leaders, yet the young raan shared by no raeans in all the
opinions of his elders ; on the other hand it had a great charm
to him to dispute with them and enjoy their perplexity.
He became co-editor with these two of the " Biblothek der
schonen Wissenschafter" in 1757, and in 1759 he published
the " Litteraturbriefe," which created a new epoch in the
development of German thought. In 1760 he became a
meraber of the Berlin Acaderay. About this time appeared
sorae of his finest draraatic works. In 1767 he accepted an
appointraent in Haraburg, which brought hira again in Cen-

lessing. 85
tact with the theatre, for whose entire reform he heartily
laboured, and out of which he wished to drive whoUy the
dominant French taste. But in the raidst of his activity in
the dramatic world, he made the acquaintance of Gotze, the
senior pastor of St Catherine's church, with whom he after
wards held a notable theological controversy. Gotze, who,
though rigidly orthodox, was a learned raan, and in particular
a thorough historical scholar, was not a little surprised to dis
cover in the theatrical critic and play writer, a raan who had
gained a footing in the whole domain of science, and who was,
moreover, better versed in the Augsburg Confession, and in
theological raatters, than many a candidate. He acquired a
greater Uking for one whom he had shunned before as a half
heathen, and did not hesitate to break a bottle of Rhine wine
for the sake of holding conversation with a man so gifted.
And Gotze reraarked, with great satisfaction, that Lessing did
not fall into the light and flippant tone which characterised
many of the new sceptics, and that he could do justice to the
real nature of orthodoxy. It was a great relief to the good raan
that Lessing showed no taste for the rainistrations of Alberti,
the junior pastor of the sarae church, to whora aU the fashion
able and cultivated Haraburg world were flocking, and whom
Gotze valiantly opposed.
The transfer of Lessing to Wofenbiittel in 1770, ^here he
was appointed librarian of the ducal Ubrary, reraoved hira from
the dramatic world to that of theology, and led to his break
with Gotze.
Lessing had begun to publish a nuraber of hitherto undis- .
covered treasures which he had found in the library, araong
which was the celebrated work of Berenger of Tours, written
in the eleventh century, and relating to the Lord's Supper,
and which all had been greeted with enthusiasra by the
theological world. But it did not stop with those harraless,
learned relics of a past age. Lessing sought out what was
newer, and published over his own narae what others had not
dared to do over theirs. The sending forth of the so-
called Wolfenbiittel Fragments, in 1774, raised a general
commotion among all minds, not unlike that which in our day
has been excited by the publication of Strauss's Life of Jesus,
although the books are very unlike, and set out from diame-

86 lessing.
trically opposite points of view. The Fragnientist established
himself not on a mythical but on a historical foundation. To
him all that the evangelists wrote was not the mere poetry of an
aUegorising tirae, but the real and purposed narrative of his
tory ; but the Bible in his hands becoraes not only Holy Writ
but profane history, and the writers are men who were con
cerned in a secret plot, and not mere weaklings imposing on us
a mythical tale. This point was presented the most forcibly
in the ablest ofthe Fragments, pubUshed in 1777, underthe
title " Of the Aim of Jesus and his Disciples." According to
this paper it was the object of Jesus to reform Judaism, and,
in deflance of the Roraan power, to estabUsh an earthly Mes-
siahship. Only when this plan had faUed, when the designer
of it had perished on the cross, did the disciples give it a
spiritual signification, and added to the narrative the story of
the Resurrection. In another fragraent the want of connection
and the contradictions in tbe account of the Resurrection, were
discussed, the origin of the story and its lack of authenticity.
As, according to the hypothesis of Strauss, the evangeUcal
history is treated as a proof of pious sirapUcity, so by that of
the fragraentist it is treated as the result of a cool, deUberate
calculation, but the irapression which they both produced was
the sarae.
Very well worth looking at and refreshing our memories
with at this time, is the picture which Seraler has left to us.
A kind of araazeraent was the result, even with raany politi
cians; dissatisfaction, with raany raen in prorainent position,
with sorae a Ught and trifling levity, and a deUberate working
out, in the sarae line, the heresies stated in the fragraents; and
the latter raethod flrst gaining ground with young scholars,
widened its sphere, and at last got abroad among citizens
and plain people, on whom the unknown fragmentist had not
counted for support. Many serious youths, who had devoted
themselves to the work of preparation for the rainistry, found
theraselves in great perplexity in consequence of this shatter
ing of the foundations of their faith ; others resolved to change
thefr calling, and not to enter upon a sphere of labours where
there would be so little stable ground left thera to work upon.
In many a city there were readers, who insisted that the
fragments could not be answered, and that although the theo-

LESSING. 87
logians might write and preach against them, yet who could
say whether they believed all they might assert ? Many won
dered whether Semler would try to confront the fragmentist;
yet he did, with the whole enthusiasm of his heart, and a
number of distinguished theologians adhered to him, and
laboured to second his eflforts. There arose a strife for the very
Ufe or death of Christianity, although the battle was fought
with various weapons. That Lessing was only the pubUsher
and not the author of the Wolfenbiittel fragments, is gene
rally conceded ; who the real author was is not to this hour
fuUy determined. Many have attributed them to Samuel
Reimarus, who was a distinguished advocate of the religion of
Nature; yet this has been denied again by others. StiU this
is certain, that the whole weight of opposition feU on Lessing
their editor. Pastor Gotze now appears in the front rank of
the antagonists. It is certainly a deplorable thing, that when
great and soleran questions are tried, little raatters of personal
bearing thrust theraselves in to embitter and disturb, Whe
ther it be true, as is asserted, that the sensitiveness of the Hara
burg rainister arose at not having a letter answered whieh he
wrote to Lessing, we will not inquire. But this we cannot
help seeing, that Gotze measured weapons with an adversary
who was his master in dialectics. In his " Anti-Gbtze," he
overcame the clergyman by his superior weight, and hence
may have arisen the popular impression, that the Haraburg
pastor was a weak, ineff'ective and ignorant man, which he
was not; had he been, this Lessing would not have expended
so much power on hira. Araong other things which he
ascribed to Gotze was a sheer unbeUef in Christianity, other
wise he would not be so prorapt to iraagine that a systera,
whose author was God, would not bear investigation. But
Gotze would not suflfer this reproach. He granted that
Christianity had nothing to fear frora investigation, how
ever apparently strong the arguments brought against it,
yet he believed it best that theological controversies should
remain in the hands of the learned, and not become the dis
cussions of the people. He did not fear for " objective reli
gion," as he caUed it, which in spite of aU the attacks on it,
wiU assert itself, ,but he beUeved that " subjective reUgion"
would be periled, since weak minds would be throvra into

88 LESSING.
perplexity regarding what they were to hold. And who could
deny this ? Even Lessing did not deny it ; but he asserted
that it was always a good thing to let a fire have air : and he
compared himself to a physician who, when a pestilence is
approaching, does not conceal its existence, but announces it
to the proper sanitary officers. A clergyman and a librarian,
he said, are two entirely different things, they bear the same
relation to each other as a shepherd and an herb collector. The
shepherd's indispensable duty is to guide his flocks to safe
pasturage, and to keep thera away frora all poisonous plants
if he can. But the collector of herbs searches everywhere, and
even gathers up the poisonous ones for the uses of science.
Truth rises above everything, and for it even the quietness
and peace of individuals raust be sacriflced. " Always," says
Lessing, " must the few who never were Christians, who never
wiU be Christians, who, merely under the name of Christians,
breathe out their thoughtless lives, always raust this despicable
class be pushed aside frora the place through which the
better class is to pass to the light." A hard expression, and
one that chimes with that view which clairas that the mere
enlightenment of the understanding is the highest good ; and
according to which the individual, with his devout feeling,
his struggles and doubts, his longings and his scruples, counts
for nothing, if only the race advance in power of thought; a
view which, if we follow it to the end, conducts us to a panthe
istic conception of the world, into which no consideration of
the individual enters, and the sparing of the weak counts as
weakness. The truth does rise above all things ; but what
truth ? Not that alone which satisfies the raind and gives
raere knowledge, but that which makes us free, which betters
us, which sanctifies us, and ennobles our whole nature; the
truth, which, like a common good for all, raises even the
lowliest above the Umited doraain of their own cares and
troubles, and which enjoins huraility upon the wisest, and
bids them be silent and leam where the frontiers of the under
standing lie. That the " unthinking Christians," as Lessing
calls them, are therefore no Christians, or the most despicable
class, who may say that ? How long has raere thought been
the raeasure of religion, the raeasure of Christianity? The dis- '
tinction which Christianity raakes between raen is not between

LESSING. 89
the thinking and the unthinking, but between beUevers and
unbelievers. SensibiUty of spirit, longing after divine qualities,
hunger and thirst after righteousness, it deraands at the out
set, and then it turns to give itself alike to learned and un
learned, to the deepest thinkers and to the simple minded.
And that this great body of unthinking ones shall be offered
up to the thinkers, this harsh, and with all its appearance of
liberality, this raost illiberal and despotic demand, is neither
Christian nor Protestant; for here may be applied the word
of Christ : See that ye trouble none of ray little ones. Lessing
happily corapares the storras in theological criticism to the
storms iu the natural world, which tear down many a neat
little cottage with its trim hedge, but at the sarae time free
the whole atraosphere frora noxious vapours; and yet it pains
us none the less to see the Uttle cottage perish, and we cannot
think that this is only an egotistical pain, lest we see our
house fall and our flowers torn up the roots, as Lessing insists.
Lessing was a passionate garabler, and played high, risking all
on a single throw.
We speak here siraply of the irapression which such storras
make upon us when they arise in the theological sky. Keep
them oflf, forcibly hold thera back, we certainly cannot. And
we raust undoubtedly concede to Lessing one Protestant prin
ciple, the hushing up and concealing of doubts in religious
matters is never a good thing, for when the flre is believed to
be subdued in one place, it is certain to break out raore
violently in another. We believe with Lessing that the fire
must havc air, and we raust approve his keen sagacity in
condemning the use of the Latin language for theological dis
cussions, on the ground that a knowledge of Latin is not in
our time the true criterion of raental development equal to
the needs of scientific arguraent. But we also believe that
air should be suppUed for the fire in the raost careful way,
that one should not make a passionate and random raove, and
should be on his guard not to overrate the often one-sided
merely conjectured value of scientific discovery at the expense
of the general religious and moral welfare of men. We will
do nothing to impede the coUector of herbs in his search for
the poisonous ones ; yet the shepherd raust be none the less
on his guard lest the sheep eat what is baleful to them, and

90 LESSING.
which would kill them rather than do them good. And if
we cannot prevent the people from becoraing acquainted with
those critical studies which were not intended for them, but
rather for the study of profound students, yet we must seek
to ward off the harm which might result frora what was used
so much out of place. And we know of only one means to
do this. It is not the raising of an untimely cry of horror
which can do this so rauch as the bringing of counter argu
ments : let weaker reasons be raet by stronger ones. Where
theoretical doubts have had great weight, there the life-giving •
power of a practical, working faith has often overthrown
thera ; but where this has been wanting, there scepticism has
had free play. By a living piety, by exercise in righteous
ness, by coraraunion with God and the working of an active
love, the Christian is daily reassured of the true strength of
his position, and is able to reassure others, and the issue of
all arguraent, if one be firraly entrenched, is certain. And
Lessing knew this, knew it better than the most of his con
teraporaries, and, indeed, than most of his opponents. " Who
ever sits securely in his own house," said he, " wiU let any
one say what he will about the foundation, the house wOI
not fall for all the talk. It is only a fool who would
go to work to dig beneath to see whether it is strong!"
But in religious matters zealots have coraraitted the error of
not guarding the error in practical wise, but of throwing sus
picions on scientific inquiry, and by this unreasonable depre
ciation of it they have lost more than they have gained.
Certainly, by the untimely bringing of theological disputar
tions before the public eye, by the reference in the pulpit to
books which are only to be perused in the study, the evfl has
often been done, of transplanting the poisonous herbs into the
raeadows, and disturbing quiet minds without any good effect.
In this thing Gotze raay have done wrong, and justified
Lessing in saying as he did, that "no one has made more
unbelievers than the believers theraselves." But in aU this
storra serious and calm theologians did not lose their courage.
" The Christian reUgion," said Seraler, " does not need to beg
for pity or mercy : it need not fall on its knees and cry out
iraploringly for life : the day wiU reveal whether it has gold

LESSING. 9 1
and silver or straw and stubble to oppose to these devastating
flames." And as every controversy on the domain of religious thought,
besides the bitterness which it occasions, conducts to new
phases of truth, and opens new points of view, so it was here.
The discussions which Lessing had with Gotze led to another
theme of great moraent in Protestantisra, the relation of the
Bible to Christianity. As the Protestant Church, in contra
distinction to the Catholic, had asserted that the Bible was
the foundation of aU religious inquiry, Lessing sought to show
that Christianity was older than the Old and New Testa
ments, which had their rise within the Christian Church, he
went directly back to the raost priraitive doctrine, fraraed by
the earUest fathers from the verbal sayings of raen, and an
oral tradition. On this living spiritual power which linked
the early believers to each other, rests, according to Lessing,
the fraraework of the church, while the Bible is but the plan
of the church on paper. And when fire ovenuns the edifice
it is better to extinguish it than to rescue the paper plan, and
carefully search in it in what part of the house the fire is
raging most severely. And fortunate would it be if that
which is taken for a conflagration is only the Northern Light !
And this reasoning of Lessing was not without sorae good
foundation, for Protestants had let a belief in the living power
of the Spirit withdraw behind their beUef in the written
Word, and always cried of the danger of the latter being
attacked, while they let the forraer sleep. Many pious and
thoughtful Protestants, particularly the raystics, had spoken
of this, and tried to remedy the evU, but they could not gain
a hearing. Lessing went too far in the opposite direction,
and fell into an equal extreme. Christianity, indeed, is not
the Bible, nor the Bible Christianity ; but in the Bible are
recorded the traces of the priraitive Christianity, which, under
the influence of the Holy Spirit, continually displayed the '
signs of life. But yet the Bible is soraething else than the
mere fraraework of the building : it is far more, and if we do
not caU the Sacred Writ itself our corner-stone, yet we thus
caU Jesus Christ in it, and we only know Christ in and
through the Bible : and likewise those apostles who have left
their records to us are the piUars of the temple, and the doc-

9 2 LESSING.
trine which they held is only revealed to us in what they
wrote. Should the Bible perish, the whole framework of the
teraple would perish : and here is where Lessing has not gone
deep enough, has been too idealistic. In the first days of the
church, when the spirit of fraternal love was so powerful and
so widely diffused, that every raember was interpenetrated
with it, there was no need of Holy Writ, for, as one of the
fathers has said, that without ink and paper, faith was written
in the heart. But how soon this Uviug faith was lost, how
soon the first traditions disturbed it, is known too well from
the history of the church, and it is Holy Writ alone which
rectifies the evils which arose, and carries us back to the
priraitive faith, and discrirainates between apostolical Chris
tianity and the fabric of huinan rainds. The Protestant
Church would cease to be if the Scriptures were given up,
although it were to be wished that we were not content with
the mere dead possession of Holy Writ, but laid more stress
upon the living Spirit, which Holy Writ not only makes us
understand but accept with the heart. And that we may
attain to this, we need just such storras as the Wolfenbiittel
" Fragraents " excited.
It is a difficult task to co-ordinate all of Lessing's rehgious
ideas into a systera. He had none. His was a critical, not
a systeraatic nature. The search after truth occasioned him
raore joy, as he hiraself confesses, than its possession did. His
bold reraark is well known, that " if God held all truth in
one hand, and the searching after truth in the other, and gave
hira his choice, he would accept the latter, even if it led him
into error whose consequences should be eternal."
It would be an error to class Lessing with any theological
thinkers who had gone before him. It would be doing him
a great injustice to class him with Voltaire and his fellows, or
with any deists or freethinkers of the comraon sort. Lessing
was of a great and noble nature. His desire for truth is un
raistakeable, his directness honourable to hira, though it be
coupled at times with roughness. How idle sounds that
story which his enemies tried to fasten upon him, that he
received a thousand ducats frora an Arasterdara Jew to encou
rage hira in his attacks on ChiLstianity. Need we wonder
that with such attacks raade upon hira he showed some venom?

LESSING. 93
Not only was Lessing unselfish, he was sincere and serious-
minded. Never does he trifie with sacred things ; he is bit
terly in earnest, even in his ridicule. It was not the gleara
of his sword but its edge which his adversaries had to fear. Wit
was indeed at his coraraand, in larger raeasure, perhaps, than
in Voltaire, but his wit was not that frivolous French kind,
it was a Ughtning flash, behind which a cloud of weighty and
fruitful truths was revealed. That trifling but superficial
scepticism which began in Lessing's tirae to break out all over
Gerraany, was not shared in by Lessing. He knew the ortho
dox systera too well to give in to those who disowned it, and
yet wanted to raise soraething untenable in its place. " In
this," he writes to his brother, " we agree that the old systera
is false, but I could not say with you that it is the raere
botchwork of ignorant raen. I know nothing in the world
which has so exercised human acuteness as that system-. A
botchwork of ignorarauses is that systera which assuraes to
put itself in the place of the old one, and to deraand that
recognition frora huraan reason which was given to the
latter. If we coraprehend araong the Deists those who have no
positive religion, Lessing must be ranked among thera, if we
assume that the Jew, in his own draraa of Nathan, gives utter
ance to Lessing's own ideas. And that this was so the
author hiraself confesses. But certainly Lessing found no
intrinsic difficulty in accepting a divine revelation, as the
other Deists did. According to his own expression, "It
must be rather a proof of its truth that a pretended revela
tion rises above huraan reason : it is no reproach that it does
so, for what sort of a revelation would it be that reveals
nothing ?"
But Lessing did not believe that revelation was a thing
past and wholly closed, but considered it as a constantly
progressive developraent of God's plan in the education of
the race. The idea of the gradual unfolding of our know
ledge of the divine econoray is very attractive, although it is
fraught with the peril of bringing raan's own plan into the
great creation which God is going on with. This idea has
been often presented. We raust here discuss it in some of
its elementary phases.

94 LESSING.
What education is to the individual, revelation is to the
race. Education is a revelation raade to the individual, and
revelation is the education which has been and stUl is
granted to the huraan race. Education gives a raan nothing
which he could not have of himself, but it gives it sooner and
raore readily. And revelation gives nothing to the race to
which huraan reason could not attain, but it gives it eariier.
As in education it is not a raatter of indifference in what
order it unfolds the powers of raen, so is it in revelation.
As education leads the mind on by a gi-adual process, step hy
step, so does revelation. Yet God raust pursue in this matter
a fixed and definite course. He chose for His purposes a
single people, one of the rudest and raost priraitive, in order
that He raight begin at the very beginning with them. To
this people, of whose religious ideas in Egypt we know
nothing, God revealed Hiraself as a Father, in order to habi
tuate them to the thought of a Deity interposing in their
behalf, and through miracles He displayed Himself more
powerful than any other God. So He accustomed them to
the thought of one Divine Being. And as children are
trained to obedience by means which appeal to the senses, —
by rewards and punishraents, — so God dealt with this people.
The proraises and threatenings related entirely to this hfe.
The knowledge of iraraortality was concealed from them.
But araong this people God trained the future educators of
the race : for as the child coraes to years of understanding
under the raingled agency of chastiseraents and caressings,
and then goes forth into the world, so this people, after
being reared in Uke raanner, was driven forth into the
world, as it were, and then first knew and felt what a Father
it had enjoyed. Most other nations were far behind it;
very few were in advance of it : just as with chUdren —
raany, left entirely to themselves, remain rough, while a few
display wonderful capacities. Yet just as slight as is the
arguraent which children thus raature, despite the absence of
training, oppose to the value of household discipline, is the
arguraent from the existence of nations, which attained a
large measure of spiritual knowledge without a direct revela
tion frora God. Even the fact that the imraortality of the
soul reraained unknown to the Jews, when it was known to

LESSING. 95
other nations proves nothing adverse to the divinely arranged
plan of the Hebrew development. The knowledge of immor
taUty was not fitted for thera in their primitive state : they
had to learn, first, the lesson of obedience ; and the heroic
observance of the law of God, because it ivas the law of God,
had in it an element of greatness which raust be regarded as
the frait of a divine economy.
Up to this time God was rather an object of fear than of
love. Arid now came the era when the conceptions of Hira
should be widened, ennobled, and purified : and this was
done when, during the captivity, the Jews becarae acquainted
with a nation which had a raore spiritual conception of God
than the Hebrew people itself had. Although revelation had
heretofore been the guide of reason, yet now reason threw
light upon revelation. That was the mutual service which
they did each other. The child sent away frora his horae
saw other children who knew more and lived more true to
their convictions than he did, and asked himself with sharae,
Why do I not know as rauch ; why do I not Uve as true to
what I know? Ought I not to have received a perfect
instruction in my father's house, as those children have
attained without any father at all ? Then it brings out its
elementary instruction books, Avhich it had thrown away in
disgust, and laj'-s all the blarae on them. But the fault is
not in those books; it lies in the child, The Hebrew nation
came back frora the captivity wiser than it went. The Jews
becarae acquainted with the Greek philosophy, then in its
palray pride, at Alexandria, and brought thence by the Per
sians and the Chaldeans, and heard for the first tirae the
doctrine of the iraraortality of the soul. The time of books
of eleraentary instruction was over with thera ; they could
no raore go back to those rude records which once satisfied
thera, than a grovring lusty lad can go back to the clothes of
his chUdhood. In the fulness of time Christ came. He
becarae the accredited, the practical teacher of iraraortality :
accredited through the prophecies which were fulfilled in
Him, through the miracles which He wrought, and through
His resurrection frora the dead. And practical, because He
did not teach the doctrine of iraraortality as a mere abstrac
tion, but brought it into the mo.st intimate relations vvith

96 LESSING.
raorals. The disciples propagated this doctrine, and reduced
it to writing. Their records became the second book in the
o
series for the instruction of the race. For seventeen hundred
years they have occupied the huraan mind more than any
other books, and have eiUightened it more, yet only by the
light which human reason brought to the interpretation of
thera. It was needful, indeed, that every people should
have the Gospel for a season as the ne plus ultra of its reli
gious knowledge : as the school-boy must have his book to
check his impatience to advance to higher things, before he has
fairly mastered the lower. And the more thoughtful, indeed,
who think that they can look beyond the confines of the
Gospel, raay perhaps find, on longer acquaintance with it,
that there is raore in it than they expected. And in time,
the revealed doctrines, which were first received as mysteries,
become at last the possession of human reason, and have
their own self- founded existence ; such doctrines, for example,
as the Trinity, Original Sin, and the Atonement.
All education has a goal. Whatever is trained, is trained
with reference to some end. And, according to Lessing, the
end of all this progressive developraent of the race is the
attaining of that era when raen will do good, because it is
right, and not because of any arbitrary rewards : then vrill
come the reign of a new, everlasting Gospel, hinted at in the
records of our present dispensation.
Judge this book of Lessing as we raay, its general spiritual
iraport and Christian tendency, as illustrating Paul's state
ment that the Law is our Schoolmaster to bring us to Christ,
cannot be denied, although bound up together with this
ruling thought is much sharp and rash criticisra, which will
not escape the reader.
We close this chapter with Lessing, who died in 1781, and
in the next shall consider the further developraent of scepti
cism during the closing years of the last century, which,
beginning with him, and building on his foundation, was so
soon firmly established and carried to the last extremes of
speculation. As a last word, however, we quote a passage from the
exceUent father of Lessing, of whom we have already spoken,

INFIDELITY CARRIED TO ITS FARTHEST ISSUES. 97
and who, in 1770, even before the pubUcation of the "Wol
fenbiittel Fragments," wrote as follows : —
" The unmerited goodness of God has brought me to the
seventy-fourth year of my life, and nearly to the fiftieth of
my pastoral labours. During this long career countless changes
have occurred, largely aflfecting men within and beyond the
pale of Christianity, but not, as it seems to me, for the better.
Persecution in raatters of conscience has passed away, and
cruelties are unknown in matters of religion ; but, on the other
hand, there is dominant an unmeasured license and a shame
less frivolity in speaking and writing of spiritual things.
Unbelief has seated itself upon the throne of Superstition.
Every one feels as free to ridicule Holy Writ as to read it.
Good and exceUent institutions are estabUshed, but injustice,
cruelty, ignorance, and disobedience, do not seem to be dimin
ished. Science is fostered, but morals are not mended. Men
hope to become known for learning rather than for a God
fearing spirit. This is my thought when I compare present
times vdth past. Those I do not despise, and these I cannot
wholly praise. Many things have been changed rather than
bettered. What is old is looked at on its dark side, and what
is new on its bright one."

IX.
INFIDELITY CARRIED TO ITS FARTHEST ISSUES.
THE PEEIOD OF " ENLIGHTENMENT" IN GERMANY.  BASEDOW AND
HIS EDUCATIONAL REFORM.  NICOLAI AND HIS REVIEW. 
THE DIFFUSION OF SCIENCE IN POPULAR WORKS.  AIM AT
GENERAL UTILITY.  BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.  MORALITY IN
THE PULPIT.  EATIONALISM IN ITS INFLUENCE ON HYMNO
LOGY AND EELIGIOUS SEEVICES.  NEW VEESIONS OF THE
BIBLE.  BAHEDT, THE THEODOEE PAEKEE OF GEEMANY.
Feom Lessing we advance to those who, buUding on the great
foundation which he laid, have been the most largely instra-
G

98 INFIDELITY CARRIED TO ITS FARTHEST ISSUES.
mental in diflfiising this miscaUed " enlightenment" among the
German nation. Yet we cannot discuss in detaU the mea
sures, or the raen who popularized the raodern infidehty and
battled with the old faith. We wiU cite the names of the
leaders merely, men doubtless better and higher in every way
than the horde of servile imitators ; they were raen to whom,
with all their onesidedness, and with all their false views, it
would be just as unfair to deny a certain claira to respect, as
it would be to insist that they laboured for the injury instead
of the welfare of their fellow-raen.
Two leaders in this infidel moveraent claira our special
attention, one erainent in the department of education, the
other in that of periodical and popular Uterature, Basedow
and Nicolai. The education of youth, and the periodical
popular press, are the two great agencies through which the
ideas which agitate the times give their irapulse, find diffusion
and produce far-reaching effects. Both are agents on whose
relation to the Church rauch is dependent ; and if in this era
of infidelity of -^hich we write there was a papacy, as much
as there was in raiddle ages, we must look for its popes among
the directors of schools or araong the editors of influential
joumals. Of these two mighty agencies, before which even
yet public opinion bows so subraissively, nothing was known
before. The school stood under the sceptre of the Church,
and periodical literature under a censorship. But now began
a change : education claimed to be independent of the foster
ing care of the Church, and a broad current of literature
spread over a domain of life which had hitherto been famihar
only with the Bible, a few books of devotion, and some scanty
and barren facts of science. The new educational system, and
the new popular philosophy, played into each others' hands,
and contested the right of the Church to be the only instnic-
tor of youth, the only guardian of the people. Not content
with that, after they had gained an independent existence,
they turned their united forces against the Church. The
ancient edifice, with its Gothic towers and windows, with its
gloomy aisles and monuraents, seemed to be no longer a fitting
place for the instruction of light-hearted childhood; the Church
raust becorae a cheerful school-roora, the quaintly carved pul
pit, with its stone staircase, must be transformed into the

INFIDELITY CARRIED TO ITS FURTHEST ISSUES. 99
awkward desk. It would be hard to say, whether this great
change would more fitly call out the song of triumph of
one, the elegy of another, or the satire of still a third. For
ray own part, I consider it a raatter alike worthy of joy and
of sorrow, and to treat it thus, is the duty of the irapartial
historian. That a great reform in education was needed, that it " was .
a great necessity of the age, no one wUl deny, who casts a
glance back to those times. The religious education of youth
had been narrowed down to the mere coraraittal of the
catechism to meraory, and the crowding of the mind with
biblical and theological details, which reraain entirely undi
gested in the brain, instead of being transf orraed into flesh
and blood. The blarae did not lie in the church as such, it
lay in the ministers of the church and their ecclesiastical
anangeraents. There were sorae men among them who
exercised large and wholesorae influence; such were Francke
and the able teachers of the Orphan School at Halle. With
this exception, there was nothing in the educational field of
Gerraany frora which good could be expected. Up to the
time of the eighteenth century, there was no true science of
education. What, hitherto, had been left to nature, to habit,
and to traditional prejudices, had to be corrected and raised
to the place of an art ; its good eleraents had to be reduced
to laws, its bad eleraents cast away. Man raust be regarded
as a whole, as truly raan ; his education raust be a gradual
developraent and cultivation of body, raind, and soul, certainly
a noble worthy task, but also a very difficult one, to accom
plish which, a single century, however " enlightened," does
not suffice. And certainly this could not be done without
deadly offence to every conservative inffuence of society ; and
as the goal of eyery educational process is religious develop
ment, it is not to be wondered at that this new movement
produced instant strife with the theologians — for the ground
principles of education are connected in the most intimate
manner with the views which are taken of the nature of
man. Whoever adopts the old doctrine of human depravity
must insist on education as a process frora without, inward.
Its work must be to break the natural will, as if it were a
hard and putrified thing, and to do it, if need be, by the

100 INFIDELITY CARRIED TO ITS FARTHEST ISSUES.
sternest measures. The historical and doctrinal elements of
Christianity, according to this view, cannot be too early im
pressed upon the soul of the child, and it is of prime import
ance that they be held as an iraperishable possession. Who
ever, on the other hand, adopted the new ideas which began
largely to prevail, regarded human nature as a germinating
seed in which a good and noble impulse dweUs, and requiring
only fostering care ; the educational process going on from
within outward. Religion was not only to be carried into
the soul of the child, but was also to be drawn from that
soul, and only so much was to be carried in as was adapted
to its iraraature grasp, and to the necessity of adequate in
ward stiraulus. But how speedy was the transition from
one extreme to the other, from the denial of human sensibility
to goodness, to the denial of sin and a fallen nature, from an
overestimate of historical and positive Christianity, to an
under estimate of it ; then carae another change. The old
educational system had borrowed rauch frora the church ; to
proraote the interests of the church was its great end. A
large proportion of all the studies of the gyranasium and the
University looked towards theology and the clerical pro
fession ; hence the value laid on the ancient languages; but
the modernized educational scherae airaed at educating men
for the world and for practical life. For what use, then, it was
said, are the ancient languages and ancient history?
Even men of the raost rigid orthodoxy, Uke Frederick WiUiam
First, expressed theraselves against the Latin ; and even
Thoraasius had declared the nselessness of it for those who
were not professed students. And so education was trans
ferred frora a nanow ecclesiastical field to broad cosmopoli
tan ground, frora a positive Christian basis, to a so-caUed
philanthropical one. Rousseau had given a great impulse to
this raovement by the publication of his " Emile." Basedow
was his interpreter and advocate in Germany. To Basedow
succeeded Saltzraann and Carape ; to thera the raore noble and
reliable Pestalozzi.
J. B. Basedow, born at Haraburg in 1723, was the son of
a hairdresser, who vnshed to educate him for his own calhng,
and govemed hira vnth such strict discipline that Basedow
ran away frora home and becarae the servant of a country
physician in Holstein. The latter soon discovered the re-

INFIDELITY CARRIED TO ITS FARTHEST ISSUES. 101
markable capabilities of the boy, and sent hira back to his
father at Haraburg, where he became student at the gymna
sium. Reiraarus, the supposed author of the Wolfenbiittel
Fragments, was his teacher, and valued hira highly. It was
the vrish of his father, a raan of the most rigid orthodoxy,
that Basedow should study theology. Even when a student
at the gymnasiura, the young raan preached at sorae of the
viUages around Haraburg. He' was very genial and merry in
his social nature, and fond of all the boisterous arauseraents
of youth. He studied irregularly, and displayed little inclin
ation for hard work, whUe the rapidity with which his
mind raoved helped hira easily over every difficulty. Thus,
prepared neither by scientific acquireraents nor by a natural
taste for theology, he went to Leipsic, and began to forra pro
jects for becoraing a great and celebrated raan. He was soon
tired of going to the lectures, and chose his own course of
study. During his vacation journeys he made the acquaint
ance of men, and during his months of study he became
feimiliar with books. In particular, he read all the poleraical
works of his tirae. At the close of his university career he
accepted a tutorship in a Holstein faraily, and it was there
that his natural, undeniable talent for instructing first dis
played itself, in a success in making his teaching comprehen
sible, and in converting the process of leaming alraost into play.
He linked his instruction to alraost everything around hira, in
the schoofroora, in the house, in the garden, in the field, and
in the workshop. His talents soon attracted rauch notice,
and his theory was received with such favour that he soon
entered upon a wider sphere. As a public teacher, and as a
writer on education, he soon won applause. Laying great
stress on sound understanding, and considering the attain
ment of a practical philosophy of life one of the most valu
able subjects of human acquisition, he became a passionate
antagonist of the old theology. This hostUity, and certain
bullying habits, which he did not lay aside even when a pro
fessor, procured his transfer to Altona, where he led an active
Ufe for some tirae as a leader in the new school of critical
theology. His next step was to, enter with his whole powers upon
educational reform. Stiraulated by Rousseau's "EmUe," he

102 INFIDELITY CAEEIED TO ITS FAETHEST ISSUES.
issued a prospectus for his great work on eleraentary instruc
tion, a very profitable book in a pecuniary sense, yielding
hira 1 5,000 rix-doUars. There was no lack of exaggerated
representations of educational science as it existed before,
there was no lack of arabitious ¦ sentences, nor of affectations
of every kind, yet the work, which appeared in 1774, met in
great degree the pubUc expectation. The feature which gave
it its special success was its indifferent tone in relation to
religion, an indifference evidently purposed and carefully
maintained. In its view, CathoUcs and Protestants, Jews
and Christians raust be treated alike ; the mental powers
must be awakened, the habit of observation sharpened, and a
general system of morality taught which should not interfere
forraally with any systera of positive religious faith. The
book raet with universal acceptance, and whoever ventured
to oppose it was held to be an advocate of superannuated
opinions. Basedow became the universal favourite ; he had
spoken out clearly what lay in raany rainds confused, incom
plete and unexpressed. He was very soon invited to Dessau,
and, under the patronage of the prince, he established a nor
raal school to test the practical worth of his ideas. To this
school he gave the name of Philanthropical Institute. A
prirae object with him was to exclude aU positive religious
instruction, and to build chiefly upon the conception of the
dignity of the human soul. Such conceptions were very
attractive to raany persons, in consequence of the pleasing
flattery which they offered to man's nature. Basedow was
not long without eager followers, of whom Saltzmann and
Campe, students of his at Dessau, were the most noted.
Sirailar institutes sprang up elsewhere, and the principles
adopted by Basedow were grafted upon the doraestic training
of children. Iraraediate changes were perceived ; in place of
the old pedantic stiffness there carae a jocose levity, and
instead of religious instruction as given heretofore, there
ensued a general eflfort to develop as frora within the capa
cities of the soul. A universal supei-flciality of knowledge
foUowed, a want of consistency in moral and religious train
ing, and a premature scepticisra araong youth, yet, doubtless,
despite the errors, the exaggerations, the whirasicalities, and
the moral effects of Basedow's scherae, it was a needed and

INFIDELITY CAEEIED TO ITS FAETHEST ISSUES. 103
healthy protest against the religious pedantry of a forraer day,
and a needful transition to the position which we fortunately
occupy. We wUl not deny that in this revolution of educa
tional ideas the final issue was good ; and we wiU not subject
the personal character of Basedow, and his peculiarities as a
man, to an over nice analysis, satisfied as we are that the
meagreness of his own scherae proved its bane, and prepared
the way for the conviction that a balanced systera of educa
tional science raust rest on a positive Christian foundation.
In personal appearance, Basedow was not attractive. He
was pertinacious in arguraent, and coraparatively indiflferent
with whom he conversed. If he could not secure the atten-
tionof a Goethe, he would thankfuUj'^ accept that of a dancing-
master. He was in the frequent habit of interjecting start
ling questions, putting every one into perplexity, and then
laughing bitterly at thefr confusion. Himself the preacher
of toleration, he was the raost intolerant of raen.
What Basedow was in the doraain of education, Nicolai,
another high priest of scepticisra, was in the domain of peri
odical Uterature.
Frederick Nicolai, the most prominent publisher of his day,
was the son of an erainent bookseller of Berlin. He received
a large part of his early education at the Orphan School at
HaUe, and is another instance of what we have often raarked
among his cotemporaries, viz., the reaction from a rigidly
formal and unspiritual religious instruction to a bold and
arrogant infidelity. Not a man of positive and original genius,
he early became the mouthpiece of Lessing and Mendelssohn,
and the publisher of the " General German Libraiy," the avowed
organ of infidelity. This journal, which first appeared in
1765, coraraanded at first the services of fifty in its editorial
corps, and at the height of its power there were an hundred
and thirty. It was the recognised medium of attack upon
superstition, fanaticisra, and prejudice, upon everything which
claimed a lofty spirituaUty, or which appealed to fancy or
feeUng. A bare, cold intellectuality capable of no high emo
tion, a heartless wit which laughs at everything which it
does not understand, set themselves upon the throne of a
merciless criticism, and sought to crash everything to the

104 INFIDELITY CARRIED TO ITS FARTHEST ISSUES.
ground which ventured to resist their domineering sway.
Not orthodox people alone, not those who are called dreamers
and pietists, but Goethe and the poets whenever they left the
blank level of prosaic thought, and phUosopbers whenever
they rose above a commonplace manner of discussion, were
subjected to this modern inqiusition, on a charge of folly,
hypocrisy and unavowed Jesuitism.
This work, like Basedow's educational scheme, was in
exact union with the spirit of the age, and seeraed to meet a
crying want of the tiraes. It popularised all departments of
thought which had heretofore been the jealously guarded
possessions of a few. Even philosophy was no longer an
unapproachable therae. Such writers as Moses Mendelssohn,
Garve, and Engel, brought to the discussion of philosophy a
practicalness, and a clearness and purity of style, which
tended largely to awaken a popular interest in it. Trans
lations frora the English periodical classics, such as the
" Spectator," gave irapulse in the same direction, as did also
the writings of that original American genius, Benjamin
FrankUn, one of the raost perfect representatives of the
purely raaterialistic philosophy, the so-called " enlightenment"
of the eighteenth century. Everything tended to, and was
measured by, practical utility.
It was, of course, irapossible for the preachers not to feel
this new raovement. Frora the stiff and formal presentation
of raere doctrine, there was a reaction towards the preaching
of siraple ethical truth. Benevolent and eleeraosynary insti
tutions, such as those for the deaf, durab, and blind, grew
out of the practical spirit of this raodemized Christianity.
Instead of hearing what the grace of God can effect in the
soul, people heard what their duties to thefr neighbours were,
and the raost popular preaching was that which was based
on the parable of the good Saraaritan ; and people heard very
little religious instruction excepting about what would make
thera happy in this world, and which would render them
useful citizens and worthy heads of faraUies : in one word,
the preaching of good raorals took the place of the preaching
of Christian faith. The reaction was a necessary and natural
one, stiU it was a reaction, and its last extreme was as
meagre as its first had been harsh. A pure Christianity has

INFIDELITY CARRIED TO ITS FARTHEST ISSUES. 105
as little to do with the one as with the other; it deraands a liv
ing faith which works by love, and aU good deeds which have
vitality in thera it perfects as the fruit of faith. Mere doc- '
trines held by the understanding, with no application to Ufe,
are just as rauch opposed to the spirit of the Gospel as raere [
ethics without the deeper basis of a soul filled with faith. But
men alraost always faU into one of two extreraes. Giving up a
mere intellectual adherence to the old forms of doctrine, they
react to a raere external morality, a raethod directed far raore
to a raere material prosperity than to the incalculable worth
of the soul. Not that the preaching of raorals is wrong ;
Christ and the apostles preached raorality, and so did the
Reforraers, ZwingU in particular. It was the raanner in
which it was now preached that was deficient. It was for
gotten that, besides the hands with which raan earns his daily
bread, — besides the feet with which he walks his busy
rounds, — ^besides the head with which he thinks, — he has a
heart alwa^'^s disquieted untU it finds inward peace ; and to
these raen of mere utiUty, the interests of the heart and the
emotional nature appeared but foolish fanaticisra. This was
carried so far, that even in the domain of poetry Campe
insisted that the inventor of the spinning-wheel ought
to occupy a higher place in the temple of farae than
Horaer hiraself. With the prevalence of such crude ideas aU
thought of supernatural ideas, and of the unseen world, was
crowded one side, even where it was not resolutely opposed
to the elevation and enlightenment of the people. Sermons
were preached everywhere upon such subjects as the care of
health, the necessity of indu.stry, the advantages of scientific
tillage, the necessity of gaining a competence, the duties of
servants, the iU effects of lawsuits, and the foUy of super
stitious opinions. I will not enter into an inquiry whether
it is true, as has been asserted, that Christmas was taken
advantage of to connect the sad story of the chUd born in
a manger with the most approved raethods of feeding cattle ;
and the appearance of Jesus walking in the garden at the
break of day on the Easter raorning, with the profit of rising
early and taking a walk before breakfast. Not a word was
heard regarding atoneraent and faith, — sin and the judgraent,
— salvation, grace, and Christ's kingdom. A selfish love of

106 INFIDELITY CAEEIED TO ITS FARTHEST ISSUES.
pleasure, and a selfish theory of life, put a selfish system of
morals in the place of a lofty religion. The old-fashioned
systera of religious service had to be modified and adjusted
to this new style of preaching, which was as clear as water,
and as thin as water too. Everything symbolical, whose
relation to practical life did not appear at once, was cast
aside, however edifying it may have been to the growth of
the souL The sacraraents were an empty ceremony, the
festivals of the Christian year unworthy of remembrance,
and even the person of Christ of indiflferent value, provided
always that the raorals of Christianity should be retained.
What a dry shrivelled remnant of Christian faith was this !
The next step was to purify the old and precious hymns of
the Church. It did not require much skiU to so modify
expressions as to raake thera ridiculous. But more laughable
stiU was the absurd attempt to strike out the whole poetical
element from poetry, and to reduce sacred song to the level of
feeble prose. Paul Gerhardt's evening song,
" Now peaceful all the forests rest,"
Frederick the Great disraissed with a sneer as stupid stuff;
and the hyran-book raakers of his age, wishing to retain the
beautiful raelody, and yet raake it pi-actical hy Unking it to
Ufe, substituted for Gerhardt's line the foUowing —
" Now peaceful rests the entire world,"
but this would not do. Either Basedow or some of his imi
tators discovered that the Une as it then stood was not true
to geographical facts — that while one half of the world is
sleeping, the other half is broad awake. The final emendar
tion remedied that, and left the line
" Now peaceful rests a hemisphere."
Every eleraent of fancy, every appeal to the emotional
nature, every trace of oriental imagery was rejected. Nothing
was retained in the hjonns of these men, except good common
sense, an exceUent quality in its place, but eminently stupid
iu sacred song. While coraplaining of the raeagreness of the
old hjrranology, they coraposed hymns on such themes as a
Good Use of Time, on Friendship, on Frugality and Modeiar

_ INFIDELITY CAEEIED TO ITS FAETHEST ISSUES. 107
tion. We give a version of one, as representative of the pre
valent style, but not so crude a specimen as might have been
selected. " To take my body's weal in charge,
Thou hast commanded me, O Lord :
To see it injured by my fault,
Thou hast forbidden by Thy word.
" Industrious, Thou would'st have us be,
While we are tenants of the earth,
And Thou hast willed that what we do,
Should be large mutual profit worth.
" O gire us mental strength and joy,
O grant a large increase of power,
That we be true to every trust,
And conscientious every hour."
The last step of all was to emasculate the strong and
vigorous language of Luther's version of the Bible, substituting
a weak, raodern, over fine style, and raaking Moses, David,
Isaiah, Paul, and even Jesus, speak in the sarae language
which they would use if they were writing a trial sermon
before entering the ministry. The brief and pregnant sen
tence, " In the beginning God created the heaven and the
earth," becarae, in the new version, " God, external to whora
nothing existed, made a coraraenceraent of all things, by call
ing into being the priraitive constituent materials thereof"
The representative man of this crude type of Gerraan infi
delity, when it had run to its extreme of frivolity, of blas
phemy, of prosaic weakness and emptiness, was K. F. Bahrdt.
One of the weakest of men, so far as regards symraetry of
character and strong intellectual power, he refiected, in so
eminent a degree, the superficial scepticisra of his times, that
we must bestow on him more than a passing glance.
Bahrdt, born in 1741, studied theology at Leipzig when
old enough to enter the university. His manner of working
was irregular, as with so raany soft heads who have relied
more on their own genius than on patient acquisition. To
this frregular method of labour, he united a want of moral
principle, and so led a wasted life, made the raore v^retched by
unbounded vanity. This raoral defect, and the last naraed
defect of character, begot in him a spirit of disquiet and a want

108 INFIDELITY CARRIED TO ITS FARTHEST ISSUES.
of fixedness, which foUowed him like an evil demon his whole
life. Bahrdt was not without talents, but he drew prematurely
upon thera and checked their power of growth. He wrote
and preached a serraon in his sixteenth year. Vanity, for
wardness, and confidence in his own powers (so he himself
tells us), corabined with his desire to please his parents in
driving him to this step. He wrote the sermon with the
greatest rapidity and while engrossed with thoughts of a most
worldly nature, and even while leading a life of great irregu
larities. The success in preaching it was so soothing to his
vanity, as to increase his confidence in himself from day to
day, and to strengthen his determination to shine as brilUantly
in the professor's chair as he had already done in the pulpit.
The external covering of professed orthodoxy served him for a
while ; but soon he was betrayed into public disputation
which revealed the extent of his ignorance. It was about this
time that his doubts, his religious doubts, began to press in
upon him. But it was not theological doubts, but his sad
morals which compelled him to leave Leipsic in 1768. He
removed thence to Erfurt, where he was appointed Professor
of Philosophy. Here he began to express pubUcly his dissent
frora the coraraonly received doctrines of the Church, though
modestly as yet ; awakening the opposition of theological men,
yet caUing out a reactionary protest against such opposition
in the forra of the degree of Doctor of Divinity, conferred upon
hira by the university of Erlangen. A thoughtless unhappy
raarriage served to embitter still more a life already wasted
and desolate. He left Erfurt and came to Giessen. The re
port of his heretical views had already preceded him ; Bahrdt
strove to dispel it, by having recourse to a subterfiige, which
does not give a very favourable irapression with regard to his
honesty. He tried, as he himself confesses, to give his open
ing sermon an orthodox cast of expression. " One only needs
to pronounce the narae of Jesus, a la Lavater, very often, and
with a very soleran tone, to convince the crowd he was sound
in the faith — so I did what prudence dictated, and preached
a sermon very fuU of Jesus, as the old ladies say."
His eloquent manner was of large service to him, and on
his style he expended great labour. He not only preached
but gave theological lectures, and was largely engaged, m

INFIDELITY CAEEIED TO ITS FAETHEST ISSUES. 109
Uterary plans. Still, he was not yet persuaded in regard to
the central traths of religion. After a certain sort he be
lieved in the Bible, or, at least, persuaded hiraself that the
Bible was the source of divine truth ; but he sought to raake
it useless for the purposes of orthodoxy. He translated the
New Testament into a dialect peculiar to hiraself, and after
wards confessed that this translation, "raade in the fair
presence of this beautiful outward creation," viz., in the back
garden of a spirit-dealer, was a financial speculation. It was
not so profitable, however, as Basedow's work on education,
and Nicolai's "Review." A few bottles of old wine was all
that the dedication to the CathoUc Archbishop of Wurtzburg
brought hira. On the other side the storra arose. The
Protestant theologians, Gotze of Haraburg at their head,
declared theraselves his opponents, and Bahrdt found him
self corapeUed to seek a new field of activity. Here
Basedow carae to his rescue. For some time he was en
gaged in educational labours. But publishing a second
edition of his translation of the New Testament while the
head teacher in an institute at Worms, a CathoUc centre, he
aroused the indignation of the clergy of that church, and his
book was confiscated. After traveUing to HoUand and Eng
land for an institute elsewhere, he was suspended, by an
iraperial edict, frora exercising any clerical function in
any part of the Gerraan erapire. He hoped upon this to find
a refuge in Prassia, and in 1779 he carae to Halle, but here
Semler met him with his whole weight of authority and
influence, Seraler, upon whose protection he had confidently
counted. He now made the acquaintance of the philosopher
Eberhard. It was he who drove the last reUc of faith out of
Bahrdt's soul. Eberhard, formerly a preacher at Charlotten
burg, was the author of a work caUed an "Apology for
Socrates ; or, the Final Salvation of the Heathen," a field
which attracted sorae attention. If the earlier hyper-ortho
doxy conderaned the heathen to perdition without reservation,
and almost without pity, neology placed Socrates on the
same level with Christ. Both views were partial, and, there
fore, both untrue. But to an unscholarly and Ught-headed
man Uke Bahrdt, it was not hard to prove that Christ laid
down no iraportant principle that Socrates had not announced

110 INFIDELITY CAEEIED TO ITS FAETHEST ISSUES.
before. " Now," says Bahrdt, " the death-knell of my faith
was struck. But this does not fall frora his lips in sorrow ;
he glories in the sarae breath that he has at last come into
the free air, that he has shaken off" the fetters which had
clogged his feet so long. The past he regarded as the time
of growth, the present as the tirae of ripeness. " I looked
upon Moses and Jesus," he himself confesses, " upon Confucius,
Socrates, Luther, Seraler, and — rayself, as the instruments of
Providence, through which He is working for the welfare of
raan." With the third edition of his New Testament ap- '
peared also his notorious letters lapon the Bible, written in a
popular style, and having for their object to strip from the
Word of God and the person of Christ every mark of the
miraculous and the mysterious, under the pretence of recora
raending Christianity raore favourably to raen of philo
sophic raind. Christianity raust have fallen very low to
have needed the recoraraendation of a Bahrdt ; a Bahrdt
who, in his alraanac of churchraen and heretics, spoke
of the raost of the theologians living then as hypocrites
or stupids ; a Bahrdt who, after giving lectures on morality
for a while to a raixed audience, becarae the dispenser of
wine and beer in a tavern at Halle, till at last he was im
prisoned at Magdeburg for writing sorae scurrilous lampoons,
and released frora there dissatisfied and embittered against
the whole world. He closed his sad life at Halle in 1792.
With the career of Bahrdt we have carried the denial of
Christianity to its last stage. We raust hereafter turn to the ,
positive side, and watch the process of reconstruction, not
merely asking what was doubted and destroyed, but what
was reaflSrmed, defended, and established.

THOEOUGHGOINQ PROTESTS AGAINST INFIDELITY. 1 1 1
X.
THOROUGHGOING PROTESTS AGAINST INFIDELITY.
TWO PARTIES, THOSE WHO WOULD CONCEDE ALL NON-ESSEN-
TLALS, AND THOSE WHO WOULD CONCEDE NOTHING.  THE
ABLEST CONTENDERS FOE OETHODOX DOCTEINE NOT THE
CLEEGY BUT MEN OF SCIENCE.  EULEE THE MATHEMATICIAN,
AND HIS DEFENCE OF CHEISTIANITY.  ALBEET VON HALLEE
THE PHYSIOLOGIST.  GELLERT THE POET.
We now turn frora the negative to the positive side. We
have traced infidelity to its lowest and crudest forras. Further
it is not necessary to go. Instances of a reckless profanation
of everything holy raight be easily cited, and proofs of the
concordance between unbelief and levity abound. But even
in this time of darkness a pure Christianity was not without
zealous and able defenders, raen of large attainraents in know
ledge as well as of blaraeless life. Even within the philo
sophical and literary world, with all the efforts to destroy
Christianity, we find an unfaltering desfre on the part of
some to sustain it, to strengthen troubled spirits, to solve
doubts, to dispel reproaches, and to restore peace. Not aU
who ranked theraselves araong the defenders took the same
course. WhUe some were firraly resolved to surrender nothing
of what had been considered the principles of a biblical faith,
others manifested a wiUingness to give up aU that was not
essential, and to guard with double constancy what should
remain. Of course, there could not fail to be raisunderstand-
ings araong both these parties of defenders of a coramon faith.
¦Indeed, Tholuck says of the latter of the two classes, that
they were like sorae foolish raan who cries out that his house
is on fire, and throws the best mirrors out of the window to
save them. Great differences of opinion existed as to what
was essential and non-essential in doctrine.
¦ We need to make two observations in advance. It has
often been said that theologians have a special interest in
defending Christianity. They must defend it because it is
their calUng so to do. Were it not for this they would fall

112 THOROUGHGOING PROTESTS AGAINST INFIDELITY.
in with the general voice of the tiraes. But if we look at the
most eminent defenders of Christianity in the eighteenth cen
tury, we find that they were not theologians, they were not
clergyraen, nay, raore, they were raen who, if actuated by
religious raotives, would have gained far raore repute and
consideration if they had chimed in with the general voice of
the times. This is the first observation. The second is, that
in view of the great advance in natural science, such a blow
has been given to a belief in revelation that it is no longer
possible for a thorough physicist to beUeve in miracles in the
seen, nor raysteries in the unseen world. And yet it is
observable that the most able defenders of Christianity, Euler
and Albert von Haller, were not theologians, but the leaders
of science in their day, Euler in raatheraatics, HaUer in phy
siology. We raust speak briefly of the labours of two such
men. Leonhard Euler was born in 1707. He received his edu
cation in Basle. He displayed very early his remarkable
genius for raatheraatics, and gave promise of the eminence
which he afterwards attained. In 1741 Frederick the
Great called hira to BerUn. Under the very face of the free-
thinking king he published his " Defence of Revelation
against the Attacks of Free-thinkers." This admfrable book
was so raarked for abiUty that we sketch its raain features,
Euler rests our need of a revelation not so much on human
knowledge as on huraan wUl. The corapleteness of man hes
in the harmony of his understanding and his wUl. Only
where the understanding and the wUl agree, — where the
understanding rests upon a knowledge of God's requirements,
and the huraan will is in subjection to the divine, is happi
ness to be found. The want of this harmony produces
unhappiness. " The understanding," says Euler, " can attain
to a high degree of knowledge, and the will be not bettered.
Experience proves this : for very often men of the keenest
inteUects are the raost deficient in goodness, and yet oftener
a high degree of virtue is commensurate with a mean under
standing." A revelation which should merely increase our
knowledge without healthfully influencing our will, would be
an injury to the race ; and in the fact that the Christian
religion, by introducing the love of God, as its most active

THOROUGHGOING PROTESTS AGAINST INFIDELITY. 113
element in subduing the wiU of man, lies the main burden of
proof that the Bible is the Word of God. It not only
enlarges our knowledge of duty, but it also gives our raost
needful help. Such a book cannot be an iraposture ; and
not to believe in it because it contains difficulties would only
plunge us into difficulties greater yet. And using georaetry
to iUustrate faith, he shows that the alleged difficulties in
the Christian reUgion are not greater than those with which
the raathematician contends. And he shows conclusively
that the refusal to accept the Bible as a revelation of God, is
an offence of the will ; else why do those who sturable at
everything which they find in the Bible so readily beUeve
everything else ? Eul^r was a thoroughly practical theo
logian, with a profound knowledge of human nature. He
rested his whole plea for the Bible on the necessity of a spi
ritual regeneration of the soul and of a change of the wiU.
The life of this great man was full of sadness, but thoroughly
simple, patient, and Christ-like. He lost his right eye in
1735, he became entirely blind in 1766. He lost his
house and his Ubrary by fire, and bore aU this wdth a
resigned and cheerful spirit, and died in 1783.
As Euler stands araong mathematicians, so does Albert
von Haller among naturalists. Every one knows that the
science of physiology owes its foundation to him. And it is
this science raost of aU to which unbelief has raade its appeal,
asserting as it does, that the spiritual part of raan is only the
result of his physical organization, and that with the body's
dissolution it ceases to be. But precisely here Haller took
issue wdth the raateriaUsts, making a sharp discrimination
between the raortal body and the iraraortal soul — between
the ground in which the plant takes root and the plant itself —
just as he discrirainates between the plant and the unseen
hand of Him who created it, and who trains it up for heaven.
Albert von HaUer was a Swiss by bfrth, and descended
from a noble faraily. He displayed a reraarkable genius, even
in his childhood, and early entered on the study of raedi
cine, beginning as a pupil of the world-renowned Boerhaave,
in Leyden. In 1736 he was appointed Professor in Gottin
gen, and entered on the enjoyraent of an reputation which
soon becarae European. The greatest Acaderaies of the cen-
H

114 THOROUGHGOING PROTESTS AGAINST INFIDELITY.
tury, those of Upsala, Stockholra, BerUn, Bologna, Paris,
Florence, Padua, Copenhagen, and St. Petersburg, accounted
it an honour to reckon him araong their merabers.
His diary has been published, and gives us a thorough
insight into a spirit always struggling to perfect itself in a
knowledge of God. In the raidst of his profoundly scientific
career he writes, at the close of the day, such words as these :
" 0 soften ray hard heart ; teach rae to know Jesus ; not to
confess Hira raerely with ray lips, but to appropriate His
grace. O teach me, when I ara sad at heart, not to tum to
worldly consolation, but to Thee ! O give rae another heart,
that shaU not flatter, that shall love Thee, and be whoUy
Thine!" Again he writes: "0 that I might think, in this
still hour, on eternity, and prize the pitiful joys of this fleet
ing life at their true worth ! O that I might not only know,
but feel, that out of peace with God there is nothing for me,
and that the raost pleasurable life is only a sad dream, which
eternity will end." And again ; " Without God the heart of
man is a sea in constant storra ; and so long as we find our
happiness in vanities, so long wiU we Uve without peace and
joy-" When the Eraperor Joseph II. of Austria once honoured
hira with a visit, he recorded in his diary, " My vanity and
pride have been flattered to-day. But let rae not forget, 0
ray God, that ray happiness does not depend upon man, from
whose favour or disfavour I shall have in a short time little
to fear or to hope. Keep rae in raind that this alone is true
happiness, — to know Thee, to love Thee, to be assured of
Thy grace, and to find in Thee a reconciled God and Judge."
When, a few days after this visit of the eraperor, some one
was congratulating hira on the honour shown him, he answered
in the words of Jesus, " Rejoice, if your names are vmtten
in heaven."
That a man who was so rigid in his self-examinations
should feel an inward call to become a defender of Chris
tianity, wiU surprise no one ; and raore especially since there
was at that tirae such demand raade upon raen who united
scholarly acquisition with Christian experience, to defend the
faith once deUvered to the saints. Haller, therefore, wrote
and published his theological letters. In the first one of

THOROUGHGOING PEOTESTS AGAINST INFIDELITY. 1 1 5
these he takes the ground that religion, in order to becorae a
solace in time of trouble, must be felt, embraced with the
heart no less than with the understanding. In his views of
human depravity HaUer diflfers widely from those who
gloried in an unsullied lofty nature. He was very clear and
positive in his estimate of sin. The externals of honour and
benevolence with which men disguise a nature deeply guilty,
did not prevent his seeing the depravity of the heart, and
deaUng faithfuUy with it. Where Bahrdt and Voltaire
gloried in their virtues, Albert von Haller repeated the pub
lican's prayer, " God be raerciful to me a sinner. Assuredly
there is a philosophical and rationalistic phariseeism, as rauch
as there is of any other kind. And this HaUer opposed with
the whole strength of his genius. The fundamental principle
of his theology is the depravity of the heart ; and he advances
frora this as Paul advances frora the sarae great truth to the
mystery of redemption. "The first view of this mystery,"
says Haller, " is like that of a mountain height, and huraan
reason, huraan wisdora, and huraan understanding, sink into
nothing before it. The Etemal One, the incoraprehensible
God, raanifests Hiraself to the people of one of His smallest
planets ; He pities the poor creatures who live upon this
earth, and He unites Hiraself to thefr life as a God only can,
taking up their thoughts and their deeds, and running
throuffh the whole course of a raortal career to a sad and
ignorainious death." It is a touching spectacle to see a great
and briUiant genius Uke that of HaUer bow before the raore
majestic greatness of the plan of salvation, and look on in
silent adoration where the spfrit of infidehty stood unabashed.
Of the workings of divine grace in the heart of the beUever,
Haller soraewhere says decisively, "No one has truly
given hiraself to God who does not discover as plainly the
working of grace in the heart as he feels the power of sin.
I am truly convinced that in the grace of God we have an
Almighty helper, who can free us from the bonds of sin, and
lead us on to lofty and consecrated purposes."
A third eminent defender of Christianity was GeUert, the
Christian Poet and Professor at Leipsic. His life was entfrely
uneventful, characterized not less by persistent and faithful
efforts, than by protracted and pafriful physical sufferings.

116 HALF-WAY EATIONALISM.
As a teacher he exerted a silent but erainently healthful in
fluence over the young men of Germany, four hundred of
whom were soraetiraes under his instructions at once. As a
poet he was the Watts of his country, and was largely instru
mental in preventing the growth of that prosy utilitarian Idnd
of sacred poetry to which rationalism gave rise. Inferior to
Lessing in keenness and to Euler in scientific attainments,
he yet fUled a large place in the eye of his countrj'men ; his
hymns Were universally read, his piety was praised by nearly
all ; the king, Frederick the Great, honoured him with a spe
cial audience, and treated hira with great respect, and even
the Roraan Catholics tendered hira their horaage.
Thus rauch for the eflforts raade to protest, root and branch,
against the rationalizing tendencies of the times. We now
come to the raen, many of them raost worthy and amiable,
who deeraed it the soundest policy to concUiate the enemy by
timely concessions of all that was unessential in faith.

XI.
HALF-WAY RATIONALISM.
THE HALF-WAY EATIONALISTS.  EFFOETS TO COMPROMISE BE
TWEEN THE ORTHODOX AND THE SCEPTICS.  CONCESSIONS
TO THE OPPONENTS OF CHRISTIANITY.  JERUSALEM. — SPALD
ING.  ZOLLIKOFER.  THE ENDING OF ALL THESE EFFORTS IN
THE THOROUGH-GOING DEISM OF TELLER.  THE EDICT OF
GOVEENMENT TO CHECK THE GROWTH OF INFIDELITY. — ITS
FUTILE RESULTS.  BENGEL AND HIS WORK.
We pass frora that able class of rainds, of whom we spoke in
our last chapter, to another class of defenders of Christianity,
not less honest and sincere, although widely different in their
method : raen thoroughly irabued with a religious spirit, and
having no sympathy with the coarse and frivolous scepticism
of their cotemporaries, and who felt it their raission to rescue
what was holy frora impious hands, and to commend what

HALF-WAY RATIONALISM. 117
was fundamental in Christianity to the raost enUghtened
thinkers of their day. These raen were, however, soraewhat
tinctured with the spirit of the age in which they lived, and
their efforts were mainly directed to such a systera of accom
modation and concession of unessentials, as should disarm the
opposition of avowed infidels, give a quietus to^disturbed and
sceptical minds, and yet not displease thorough-going believers.
These raen raust not for a raoraent be confounded with such
light-rainded triflers as Bahrdt, although' they may have
shared some of their opinions. The point always to be re
garded in such coraparisons is the spfrit out of which religious
differences grow. But this point was not held distinctly
enough in view in the last century. And the result was, that
men of ChristUke teraper, perfect honesty and sincerity of pur
pose, drew upon themselves a suspicion, a hatred, and a mis
understanding, which lasted even to the third and fourth
generation. Is anything more painful to bear or to think of
as bome, by raen of guileless motive and gentle spirit? Because
it is our custora to raeasure the faith of a raan by the language
of his reUgious confession, the error has been often raade of
bringing into undue prominence errors of the understanding,
and of passing a hasty judgraent upon the heart, which cer
tainly has often been far sounder than in many who set no
value upon a pure heart, but only on an accurate intellectual
statement of religious truth. It makes me sick in my soul,
when I hear men, who were the leaders of their tiraes in raorals
and religion, called unbelieving, unchristian, and even anti
christian, when I know that many of them, in spirit and in
deep reUgious feeUng were far superior to raany speculative
thinkers of our tirae, who probably have a raore digested and
a more thoroughly comprehensive grasp of Christian doctrine,
but no more of a deep spiritual experience than they. I would
not be understood as speaking in approval of their theology,
for their theology was a rairror, poor and broken, of their age ;
I do not deny their enors, nor the dangerous defects of their
theological systera, nor the one-sided consequences to which it
led ; least of aU would I commend their writings for the edifi
cation of Christians now ; I beUeve we have advanced far
beyond them in Christian truth, and I rejoice at it ; but we
must not forget that it is our duty to prize and to acknow-

118 HALF-WAY EATIONALISM.
ledge truth wherever we find it, in Catholics and Protes
tants, in Orthodox and Heterodox, in Mystics and Pietists.
We narae first a raan who was a coteraporary with Gellert,
and an intiraate friend of his, Dr. Jerusalera.
J. F. W. Jerusalera was born in 1709, and was the son of
a clergyman. He early became a student at the University
of Leipsic, and afterwards at Leyden. Later he made a jour
ney through Holland, and becarae acquainted with men repre
senting all religious rites, and learned how to prize what
was good in each. He sought, as he hiraself tells us in his
biography, to becorae acquainted with every raan of high
Christian principle, and the nearer he came into terras of inti
macy with such, he enjoyed their society the more thoroughly,
and saw that the fundamental principles of Christianity, despite
aU the differences in expression, bear the same fruit.
Jerusalem led an active influential life in the Duchy of
Brunswick, advancing from the position of private tutor in the
ducal family to the prince. His life was in every way a bless
ing to Brunswick. The erainent school called the Carolinian, and
the institutions for the beneflt of the poor, owe their existence
to hira. His observations, both on education and the treat
raent of paupers, were the result of a large experience, and
have value even now. Sorae words of his on religious instmc
tion I cannot forbear quoting. " It is in the highest degree
sad, that according to present anangeraents, instruction in
religion ceases at just that tirae when the understanding begins
to attain sorae maturity, and that therefore young people,
have no further knowledge of Christianity left them for theu*
future life, than what reraains of thefr meagre instruction
during j'outh. Serraons can never make this want good, and
yet it is these very young people who, on account of their
varied eraployraents, wUl exercise a large influence over
society." This deflciency, in a thorough reUgious course of
instruction, Jerusalera ascribes to the almost universal under
rating of the value of reUgion and the worship of God, and, on
the other hand, to that external form of rigid behef which,
lacking the very spUit of religion, causes men to react towards
scepticisra and unbelief " We have," says he, " altogether too
little Christianity : people enough who bear the name of
Christian, but too few who have the truth within themselves,

HALF-WAY RATIONALISM. 119
who can bear witness to its blessedness, and speak with assur
ance of its testiraony in themselves."
While Basedow and his foUowers sought to divorce educa
tion from religion, Jerusalera sought to raake strong the bond
between church and school, and to contribute to the further
ance of that, he desired, that the church should share in the
light which the school was flinging out in new profusion.
He Criticised the purely theological training of the clergymen
of his day, and insisted on the need of a broader and more
harmonious culture. Without wishing to proscribe the dead
languages, he condemned the one-sided devotion to their
attainment, and tried to bring into new prorainence the study
of natural science, and a perfect raastery of the German. The
development of the resources of his raother-tongue was a
favourite therae with hira, and his weight was largely influ
ential in giving this direction to the studies of young raen.
Not only upon education, but upon the condition of paupers,
Jerusalem exerted a vast control, and to hira his country is
indebted for services in behalf of the poor which can hardly
be overrated. Public charity had heretofore restricted itself
in great part to the raere giving of alras : Jerusalera exalted
it to a science : he founded institutions which should stirau -
late to industry, and give paupers an opportunity to earn a
part of their Uving at least ; and raore than all, he sought to
invest their children with a cordon of religious associations,
that they raight, in their future life, have some raeraory of
holy things, and be able in all the possible adversities of a
career of poverty, to look upon the cross of Christ and bear
their burden in patience. It is clear that the Christianity
which such a man possessed was not learned by rote, a mere
system for the brain, but faith for the heart. And this devout
and earnest practical piety he displayed in aU his relations to
others, and in aU the provident trials of his Ufe. A hard
blow to him was the death of his only son, the staff of his
old age, and a young man of promise. Soon after this he lost
his wife. " Both of these bereavements were a sore trial to
him," says his biographer Eschenburg; "they sank deeply
into his soul, and raade his friends apprehensive for his Ufe ;
but his spirit soon nerved itself, and religion came to his sup
port with its raost potent consolations. Peace gradually crept

1 20 HALF-V,'AY RATIONALISM.
over hira, and in aU his sorrow not a raurraur of discontent
escaped his lips. When his own end approached, he exclaimed,
" If I shall go now to ray higher horae, how happy I shall
bel" Jerusalem's faith was siraply biblical, as distinguished from
that which the later speculative theology had grafted upon
Christian doctrine. Those presentations of divine truth had
tbe most weight with hira which brought out raost distinctly
the wise dealings of Providence, and the value of love to our
fellow-raen. He was a devout believer in the divinity of the
Saviour, without feeling a necessity of accepting the commonly
received doctrines regarding His person and the Trinity, as
essential parts of religion. With aU good Christians he re
garded the death of Jesus as the greatest blessing ever con
fened on the race, as the ground of our salvation, yet he did
not agree to all the stateraents of the doctrine of the atone
ment, thinking some of thera harsh and repugnant. He says
himself, " How sad it is that so raany people are held back
frora a confession of Jesus, and even converted into enemies
of the Gospel, in consequence of our insisting upon certain
formulas, and so they who ought to be Christians are pre
vented fi'ora acknowledging God, frora following a virtuous
life, and accepting Christ as a divinely appointed messenger
of peace and goodwill. Must the Christian religion, which was
a&suredly raeant to be so simple as to be suited to the wants of
aU men, to lead and comfort even the unlettered, be clad neces
sarily in strange and artificial dograas, and in phrases which
are not found in the Bible?" He carefuUy avoided, therefore,
in his serraons, all those expressions which he judged would
call up false and crude ideas, unworthy of God, and rather
eraployed the simple, natural style of comraon life. And even
now, a hundred years after, Jerusalem's sermons are remark
able for the simplicity of the style, the clearness of the
thought, and an earnestness which gives them great value.
Although many expressions which are sacred and precious in
the eyes of raost people may be raissed in them, yet not with
out great injustice would they be denied the credit of many
Christian excellences. Above all, it must not be forgotten,
that, next to Mosheim, it was Jerusalera who flrst introduced,
in opposition to the false taste then prevalent, a more simple

HALF-WAY EATIONALISM 121
and truly Gerraan style of pulpit eloquence, a style which,
although lacking the priraitive strength and originaUty of '
Luther, and approaching raore the tone of the essay, was yet
in entire contrast to the inflated, tasteless, canting raethod of
preaching which had been in vogue during the seventeenth ;
century, and which stiU continued on, even into the eight
eenth. Jerusalera coraplains strongly of the tastelessness of
those preachers, who, although talking in general society in
the sarae tone and manner with all sensible men, no sooner
ascend the pulpit than they break into a brawling tone, such
as watchmen raight use at night in calUng the hour, or roving
pedlars vending their wares along the streets. This raanner,
they think, is raore irapressive. The returning from such a
false style to a more siraple one was of great raoraent ; and it
brought into religion soraething of the sarae gain that the
return to raore naturalness introduced into the doraain of
education and literature. It was possible, indeed, that sira
pUcity might lead to jejuneness, and that what is grand, sub
lime, and soleran in religion, raight be raade bald and pitiful
by too meagre a presentment in the raere language of cora
mon life, and so in the end the noblest themes be reduced to
bare coraraon place. Yet with Jerusalera, and the best
preachers of his school, this was not the case. They knew
how to corabine sirapUcity with dignity, and thus to give to
their serraon^, despite all their deficiencies, a certain classical
worth, in contradistinction to that fanciful and tasteless law
lessness, into which so many of our raodern preachers have
faUen, in their struggles after originality. In other words,
Jerusalera was a representative of the best tendencies of his
time. He airaed to be serviceable to that class of raen, whose
employments do not perrait them to enter upon close and
learned investigations into religious truth, but who ought, in
consequence of their intimate relations with the world, and
the general frivolity which sets all serious matters aside, as
unworthy of attention, to be acquainted with the fundamental
principles of religion, and the applications of Christianity to
life. And, therefore, Jerusalera raet a real and general want of
his age. The tirae was pa^st when thoughtful and educated
laymen would be satisfied with what they had leamed in the

122 HALF-WAY RATIONALISM.
catechism ; serraons would not cover the whole ground with
which they wanted to be farailiar, nor had they leisure for
pure theological works, and there was needed a new type of
religious literature, which should be interesting and instructive
at the sarae tirae, and which should stand raidway between
rigid raetaphysics and raere declaraation. And Jerusalem
laid the foundation for just such a literature as this, and in
conjunction with Sack, a court preacher in Berlin, he did
much to diffuse a genial unsectarian spirit, and to throw a
religious spirit over comraon life.
Another raan who contributed rauch to this new type of
religious life was J. J. Spalding. He has left us his life
written by himself — the record of a career singularly wanting
in eventful incidents, but active and peaceful. He Uved to a
great age, and was engaged in high ecclesiastical functions in
Berlin during the larger part of his career. His life was free
frora any of those storras which tossed such souls as Augus
tine, Tauler, and Luther, and raade their life so fruitful in
struggle and passionate experiences. And Spalding's theo
logy was the reflection of his peaceful, uneventful life, a
superficial theology, in the best meaning of the word, a faith
which, though not disowning the unseen sublimities of reve
lation, yet mainly ignored them, because it felt no special
need of thera. He laid great stress upon uprightness, and
sincerity, and the comraon virtues of life : he had little or no
syrapathy with an eraotional type of religion, if divorced
frora the understanding ; he had no sympathy with the rich
and gorgeous language of the Oriental books which enshrine
our faith, and sought to translate it into the familiar language
of daily life, overlooking the fact that, according to aU expe
rience, the Bible is one of the most intelUgible of books, and
to no classes raore so than to the rude and the simple.
Spalding was a gentle, genial, affectionate soul, but lus faith
was too arid to meet the wants of raen of stormier life ; and
while he won universal respect, and the love of even his
theological opponents, he did rauch to encourage the unsettled
temper of his age, to make religion comraon place, to degrade
the clergy into raere teachers of the understanding, instead
of prophets of the truth. He was a raan not without
emotion hiraself, but the resolute foe of eraotion in religion,

HALF-WAY EATIONALISM. 123
particularly when the offspring of appeals to the senses.
In this way he gave, as Tholuck reraarks, a colder and yet a
purer character to religion ; colder, inasmuch as he laid more
stress upon intelUgent conviction than upon impassioned
feeling, and purer, inasrauch as he encouraged the growth of
the raore horaely virtues, when heed is given only to a deep
eraotional type of piety. Spalding preached oftener on
honesty and happiness, on the faithful perforraance of duty,
and the contentraent that ensues, than on a new birth, sal
vation, and redemption ; raore on the religion than the per
son of Christ ; raore on the fruits of a virtuous disposition
than of the Holy Spirit. He did not see that raen, in
changing the forra of expression, often surrender the object
expressed, — that in pouring wine from one vessel into another,
a large part might be spilled and lost. And yet no man was
a more sincere friend of religion than Spalding. So far as
he went he was perfectly true to hiraself His creed was
limited, raeagre if you wiU ; yet, such as it was, it was the
expression of his own nature. He never spoke a word on
religious things which did not testify to his own experience.
It is the people who do not trouble theraselves deeply about
religion, who do not hesitate about accepting a doctrine raore
or less in their creed ; but Spalding would take nothing on
trast ; he must always know for himself, and feel for himself,
what he acknowledged as true.
ZoUikofer, an eminent preacher of Leipsic, was another
leader of this half-way school. His congregation consisted
mainly of inteUigent tradespeople ; and at a time when the
prevaiUng tone of aU talk was in mockery of reUgion and
Christianity, he endeavoured to awaken an appreciation of
what was high and noble in them, and to develop thefr
moral aspect. He carried raorality, in his preaching, to its
farthest liraits, where, perhaps, the roots out of which the
Christian Ufe should spring, were lost somewhat fi-om sight.
His themes were such subjects as the Worth of Manhood,
Friendship, Education, Social Life, and the Uke. Yet the
one-sidedness and unformity of ZoUikofer 's discourses being
granted, it is not hard to find in them proofs of a noble and
even character. He lived in the universal respect of aU who
knew him.

124 HALF-WAY EATIONALISM.
We have tried to do fuU justice to the good intentions of
the class of men of whom we speak in the present chapter,
and to show that, despite a rather raeagre appreciation of the
essential principles of Christianity, their aira was to cultivate
and diffuse a catholic and gentle spirit, and to promote the
best interests of religion. Notwithstanding, we must confess
that the results of their labour were not so happy as they
expected. Their piety, clear as it shone out in them, was too
much the raanifestation of their personal character, it was
too subjective, to raake a deep impression upon the great
raass of men. A Christianity for the raere thinking, corre
sponding, reasoning, and philosophizing world, was not the
glad tidings, which were raeant for aU. The fair, blue, philo
sophic heavens, which, as Herder expresses it, was seen
everywhere through the church roof, was only the cold
northern sky of abstraction, and the blessing whieh fell
from it was far raore poor and raeagre in good, than that
which had followed the labours of a Luther, an Arndt, a
Spener, and the hyran writers of the sixteenth and seven
teenth centuries. As the gifted Steffens says : " The well-
meaning writers of this school did not observe that aU rehgion
is a primitive thing, — that it demands the first place in the
heart, — that it will allow nothing to stand between it and
its possessor, — and that, if its inner kernel is gone, it can no
more be made living and effective, than life can be breathed
into sorae of the products of chemistiy." And we must also
assent to Steffens, when he asserts that the works of these
half-way raen have opened a path which eventuaUy led to
rationaUsm ; instead of conducting the rainds of their age
away frora infidelity, they aided, in the end, the general
movement of their age." This result was most signally dis
played in the life of a man who stood in terms of the closest
intimacy with Spalding, and whose personal character had
many excellences, but who carried the temporizing and
accoraraodating spirit so far, that the vital differences between
what is distinctively Christian, and what is Jewish or
Mohamraedan, faded almost out of sight in his teaching.
This was TeUer, an ecclesiastical dignitary of considerable
eminence. He was one of the strongest advocates of a ver
sion of the Bible which should elirainate its Oriental features ;

HALF-WAY EATIONALISM. 125
and in arranging a systera of faith in which aU might agree,
he arrived at something very little different from deisra ; and
although he clung to the orthodox rather than to the neolo-
_gical school, yet his narae was caught up by those who were
endeavouring to overthrow the old faith ; and at his death,
his eulogists went so far as to say, that if the world had a
few raore such raen as Jesus, Luther, and Teller, aU would go
well with it. Thus the circle was coraplete, and the two
arcs, the one ending with the frivolous Bahrdt and the other
with TeUer, united.
The death of Frederick the Great caused a reaction. The
course of frivolous scepticisra and of the half orthodox, half
sceptical rationalisra had been corapletely run, and the love of
novelty had been satiated. On the accession of Frederick Wil
liara II., a reUgious edict was published, in which the orthodoxy
of past days was loudly vaunted, and the stern reUgious
discipUne of the older Prussian raonarchs loudly extoUed.
This edict, while repudiating any interference with conscience
and with individual beliefs, yet rebuked severely the blas
phemous tone everywhere prevalent, reaffirmed the need of a
revival of the old orthodox faith, and forbade the preaching of ,
infidelity. It conceded all the forraer privileges to the Lu
theran, Calvinistic, and Catholic Churches, but it enjoined a
strict adherence to its old forraulas and syrabols. It ap
pointed a comraission for the exaraination of candidates for
the ministry, and its actions were to be decisive, though
courteous and fafr.
Yet this edict, in one sense so much needed, utterly faUed.
It was soon found to be impossible to raake religion a raatter
of police, and to prescribe for the faith of a great nation as
one would prescribe for the cutting and fitting of a uniforra.
It was soon seen that it was not possible to have binding
guarantees from those whose duty it was to enforce the edict
itself, for the streara could not rise higher than the fountain.
There was hardly an effort made to enforce it. A single clergy
man only was set aside from his office in consequence of his
infidelity, and the government gave him a good civil appoint
ment at once. And despite the approval of Seraler, and the
bitter scorn of Bahrdt, the edict speedily becarae a dead
letter.

126 HALF-WAY EATIONALISM.
But what police ordinances could not effect, the great law
of reaction could accoraplish. WhUe rationalisra was advanc
ing, both in open and in covert forras, pietisra was raaking steady
advances too. Men who could see to what this half way
raethod, this coraproraising spirit, would lead, were steadily
working in the interests of deep and yet enUghtened piety.
Through all the stormy days of Frederick's career, while a
blasphemous infidelity reigned at Court, and a compromising
and accoraraodating rationalisra was preached from the most
popular pulpits, they quietly worked on and awaited the time
of reaction, a reaction of which the above-named edict was
rather the exponent than the avenging minister. And at
length the reaction came.
The most prorainent narae among those who, with wise yet
steadfast raoderation, resisted the spirit of the times, was John
Albert Bengel, whose name is well known to Enghsh and
Araerican biblical students as the author of that critical com
mentary on the New Testament, caUed Bengel's Gnomon.*
This keen, thorough, and scholarly work, after passing into
disuse, is again brought forward, and ranks among the fore
raost of exegetical productions, and is regarded as indispensable
to students of the Bible. Yet this work, volurainous as it is,
formed but a comparatively sraaU part of the labours of its
author. Bengel was a native of Wurteraberg, and spent his
life in Southem Gerraany and exerted an influence which,
wide and deep as it was there, hardly extended at that
tirae to the north. The school which he founded cannot,
therefore, be regarded as of the raost raarked power and pro
minence in its relation to the vast problem of German infi
delity. Yet' it would be unjust to the great man of whom we
speak to lead any reader to the inference that the circle of
his activities was a narrow one. He towers in a most marked
manner above the men of his coteraporaries. Superior in
keenness to any other theologian of his tirae, a chaste, forcible
preacher, using the siraple Bible traths in the plainest and
most sternly practical way, genial and winning in all his relar
tions, and so bound to all the rising young raen of his native
kingdora by strong ties ; an active, vigorous raan, largely con
trolling the educational and the reUgious affairs of Wiirtemberg;
* First translated into English quite recently, and published by Messrs. Clark
of Edinburgh, in hve volumes Svo.

HALF-WAY EATIONALISM. 127
a man of varied leaming, and so writing on many subjects,
and on all well ; a man of unceasing industry, and so accom
plishing the labours of many comraon Uves in one ; he may be
regarded by us as not only one of the greatest and best, but as
one of the most effective men of his age, preserving the flarae
of pure Christianity alive during a period almost wholly given
over to a reckless infidelity ; a firm and sure anchor to many
souls less sure and steadfast than his. He was not a pietist
in any technical sense, for he Uved a long way from Halle,
which pietisra called its horae. In the narrow use of lan
guage prevalent at that tirae, he raight perhaps be called a
pietist, for all were called by that narae who believed in any
thing higher than the raere objects of sense, and whose religion
sprang from anything deeper than a mere desire to discharge j
conectly the comraon duties of life, and to practise the virtues
which give an irreproachable reputation. More strictly he was
a raystic, and yet not a raystic in the sense of being so drawn
into the current of religious speculation, as to have nothing
left for the purpose of an external activity. Religious raen
are usuaUy exclusively workers, or exclusively thinkers ; few
unite, as Bengel did, a large share of the speculative with an
equally large share of the practical eleraent. Like many of
his countrymen, his doraestic life was singularly rich and happy,
and his whole career is one which, did our space perrait, it
would be profitable to present in raore than this raeagre out
Une. He founded a school, not, indeed, on any set systera of
doctrine, but raoved rather by his broad and genial spirit, and
the influence of his followers was widely beneficial. Under
the conduct of men of this school, the first scherae of an alli
ance of all Evangelical Christians was carried into effect, and
the basis of union, the broad yet distinctive features of salva
tion through Christ, has been retained even until our own
tirae, and is reproduced in the Evangelical Alliance of to-day.
To Bengel, therefore, Gerraany owes a debt which it would be
hard to pay, not for successfuUy steraraing a tide which no
man could stem, but for keeping alive a flarae free frora all the
fluctuations of caprice and overwrought zeal and ignorance,
yet bright and cheering and invigorating to the raost healthy
Christians of his age. Araid raost depressing influences,
he stands out in the fuU soundness of a complete, graceful,
effective, Christian raan.

128 ZINZENDOEF, THE FOUNDER OF TUE MORAVIANS.
XII.
ZINZENDORF, THE FOUNDER OF THE MORAVIANS.
ALLUSION TO HIS BIOGRAPHERS  HIS YOUTH AND MARRIAGE-
CHRISTIAN DAVID  FOUNDING OF THE MORAVIAN COLONY
AT HERRNHUT  ZINZENDORF'S JOURNIES, FORTUNES, DEATH,
AND BURIAL  SKETCH OF HIS PERSONAL APPEARANCE^
EXTENT OF HIS LABOURS AXD INFLUENCE  HIS CHARACTER
AND JIENTAL CONSTITUTION  HIS THEOLOGICAL VIEWS OF
CHRIST, OF THE ATONEMENT, AND OF THE BIBLE — HIS
POETRY  ZINZENDORF AS AN ORGANISER : THIS HIS JUIN
STRENGTH  RELATION OF THE BROTHERHOOD TO THE
CHURCH.
The reraark has been raade that it has not always been the
distinguished theologians, in contrast with raen of the world,
who have most ardently espoused the cause of Christianity;
but that, on the contrary, where the theologians have been
iraperfectly guarded, or have too readily surrendered their
sacred trusts, layraen, pious and gifted, have risen, who, partly
by their teachings, partly by their organising power, have
largely influenced the developraent of religious life. This is
plainly to be seen in the founding of the Moravian order, and
in the history of its founder. We raeet there a most notable
instance of that constructive talent, often missed in the deepest
thinkers, the greatest scholars, the most genial and fruitftil
rainds, and which yet raakes an impress on histoiy hardly
second to that made by conqueror or statesman. In the midst
of a colony of poor artizans, descendants of those old Hussites
who left their homes for their faith's sake to dwell upon
German ground, rises the figure of a distinguished and accom
plished man, and, by his side, a wife no less conspicuous.
This nobleraan and his countess we see, in conjunction with
these siraple people, able to organise a church — one which
shall serve as a raodel, and out of which a new Ufe shall grow
— a church which in its branches has been found throughout
the Protestant world, and which finds to-day both outspoken

ZINZENDORF, THE FOUNDER OF THE MORAVLiNS. 129
and secret friends araong people of all ranks and all varieties
of education. I wish to give an unbiassed account of the Ufe
of so reraarkable a man as the founder of such a chuich must
have been ; to narrate rather than to sit in judgraent. Zin
zendorf's life has been written by many. I will refer only to
the biographies by Spangenberg, Schrautenbach, John George
MiUIer, and Varnhagen von Ense. In them the curious reader
will find larger detail, and the raost varied criticisra of the
man. Nicolaus, Count of Zinzendorf and Pottendorf, was bom at
Dresden, May 26, 1700. The house of Zinzendorf, from a
remote period in possession of large estates in Austria, had
been raised to the rank of a barony by Leopold I., and, in some
of its branches, had early embraced the Protestant faith. The
grandfather of our Count went to Franconia for the sake of
his Lutheranisra, and two of his sons, araong them the father
of our count, came to Saxony. He, when prirae minister of
the country, raarried Charlotte Justine, Baroness of Gersdorf,
who bore hira the son, the subject of the present memoir. Six
weeks after the birth of the child the father died, after having
given it his blessing on his death-bed. The mother was not
only pious but accomplished ; but the little one enjoyed her
care for only a few years. After the death of her husband the
baroness left Dresden and lived upon her estates in Upper
Lusatia, and raarrying a few years later, she reraoved to
Berlin, and coraraitted the bringing up of her child to her
mother. So, in his grandraother's house, his susceptible heart
received the first irapressions of that piety which was through
life his most marked characteristic. The aged Spener, who
had been the godfather of the child, always remained his fast
friend ; and, in one of his visits, he gave his blessing to the
child, predicting for him great erainence as a proraoter of
Christ's kingdom. Under the raild discipline to which he was
subjected, he early becarae acquainted with that old treasure-
house of spiritual books and poems, which, in those tiraes,
stood next to the Bible as a raeans of edification ; and though
a storray and passionate nature sometiraes broke out in hira,
he took great corafort in devotional works, and there soon was
developed in hira a desire to enter into a Uving and inner
union with the Saviour. " Be thou raine, dear Saviour, and I
I

130 ZINZENDORF, THE FOUNDEE OF THE MOEAVIANS.
wiU be thine," was his cry. He communed with Jesus for
hours at a time. He even wrote little notes, which he threw
out of the window, in the hope that his heavenly friend woidd
find them. From his chUdhood he felt, as fire in his bones,
to use his own expression, a desire to preach the eternal god-
hood of Jesus. And even when a chUd of six years, he was
fond of going into an erapty haU, and gathering the chairs
around hira as listeners, to preach to them. In 1 706, a troop of
Swedish soldiers came to Grosshennersdorf and pressed into
the raanor-house. Astonished, the warriors stood and listened
to the young preacher, and forgot the object of thefr coming.
A desire to do good seemed to be kindled at the same time
with his "love of prayer. All money which the young count
received he gave iraraediately to the poor, and displayed a
strong desire to be of service to the needy. The whole mental
developraent of the boy seeraed to be dfrectly dependent upon
the predominant spirituality of his nature. For raathematics
he shewed little taste, and for languages he had httle aptitude.
On the other hand, he coraraitted to raemory in early chUdhood
all the most quoted verses of the Bible, and showed a remark
able sensibility for devotional poetry. He himself tells us how
full of joy he was weeks before the celebration of Advent and
Christmas; and he entered so fuUy into the songs then mostly
sung, and into the sermons which treated so exclusively of the
Saviour, that he was able almost to transport himself back into
the past, and raake hiraself a witness of Jesus' Ufe.
When ten years old, Zinzendorf came to Halle to enter the
High School, then under the charge of Francke, its emihent
founder, who took hira under his special charge. Francke
subjected him to a rigid discipline, and sought to' break down
in hira a pride of rank which he supposed to exist in him.
That Zinzendorf had faults he hiraself confesses, aUeging that
he was subject to a prying curiosity, and was not disinchned
to enter into the usual rogueries of school boys; but, continues
he, " I stood under the restraint of a discipUne of which my
corarades knew nothing, and I was not raerely held back from
doing wrong, but was so blessed of God as to be the means of
bringing to the Saviour raany who sought to lead me astray.
He not only succeeded in calUng his school raates to meetings
for prayer, but he even estabUshed an Order, the Order of tbe

ZINZENDOEF, THE FOUNDEE OF THE MOEAVIANS. 131
Grain of Mustard-Seed. The insignia was merely a gold ring,
on which was engraved, " None of us Uves for himself" In
the spring of 1716 Zinzendorf retumed from Halle to Gross
hennersdorf, and soon after entered the University of Witten-
burg; for his uncle, who conducted his studies, did not wish him
to reraain in Halle, fearing that he would becorae a complete
pietist, of which there were already marked indications. Zin -
zendorf must study law, and the nephew obeyed, although
theology lay much nearer his heart. He paid attention
to systematic training even, rather out of obedience than
natural inclination. He conformed to the discipline of the
schools for fencing, dancing, and riding ; but he prayed the
Saviour to deliver him speedily from these enforced studies,
and to grant him freedora to devote some hours each day to
what was more consonant with his natural tastes. He learned
some games, but only those which sharpen the understanding,
like billiards and chess ; and, if he played for money at all, he
gave what he won to the poor, or laid it out in Bibles for
general distribution. Among the theologians of Wittenberg, he
was speciaUy attached to Dr. Wernsdorf, who roused in hira the
desfre to becorae a minister of the gospel. But there were many
hindrances in the way of this, especiaUy his noble rank. But
Zinzendorf cared very Uttle for the humbleness ofthe preacher's
calling. He was wiUing to become a siraple catechist or vU
lage pastor, so far as he was himself concerned, Uttle as his
fiiends would enjoy it. Yet he left it all with God. " Will
God grant rae the power to be useful," he writes, " I wUl bid
defiance to a world in anay against me. But if he grant this
not to rae, yet ara I not forgotten of Him ; and he has work
for rae to do, even if it be to keep my own heart and Ufe pure
in these evU times, and prepare for a blessed eternity."
The year 1719 the Count devoted to the tour then usuaUy
taken as a part of the education of a young nobleraan. His
route took him first to HoUand. In the picture gaUery at
Du.sseldorf, an Ecce Homo made a very powerful impression on
the youth. Below the painting were the words, " AU this I
have done for thee, what hast thou done for me ?" He was
ashamed to confess to hiraself how Uttle he had done, and he
wished that the Saviour would compel him to becorae a par
ticipant in His sufferings, if he could not himself reproduce

132 ZINZENDORF, THE FOUNDEE OF THE MORAVIANS.
thefr keenness. And so through his entire tour over Holland,
Belgium, and France, his soul was drawn with almost pas
sionate yearnings to Jesus : and in Paris it was not the
showy displays, not the operas and the theatres, the fine
buUdings, the gardens, and the fountains which claimed his
interest : what he sought in that great capital was the
Christians, the children of God : and it was the pious and
benevolent institutions which called for the most of his atten
tion. France was then an interesting field of view for a per
son interested in ecclesiastical affairs. The philosophy of
Voltaire and the Encyclopaedists had not yet been promul
gated. The names of Bossuet, Pascal, and Fenelon shone out
in undimmed glory. The conflict with the Jansenists, re
ceived as an heirloom frora the seventeenth century, still
existed, and had been recently revived by the Papal bull
L'nigenitas. Zinzendorf made the acquaintance of a number
of the Jansenist clergy, and became on intiraate terms with
Cardinal Noailles, whose siraple, pure piety won him to the
raan without raaking a Romanist of him. Zinzendorf re
tumed to Germany by way of Strasburg and Basle. The
impression which this tour left upon him was not of wonder
at the extent of worldly splendours, but, on the contrarj'^, he
writes to his brother, "You cannot beheve how distasteful the
world now looks to me. The littleness connected with the
things reputed high is pitiable, and there is no one so grand
who is not raiserable if another be grander than himself
Half of the world is dying of envy to-day. 0 splendida
miseria !"
Zinzendorf spent sorae time in intercourse with the pietists
of HaUe, and sorae tirae on his grandraother's estates, and
only after many appeals from his friends could he be per
suaded to enrol hiraself as counsellor-at-law at Dresden, and
then only under the condition that he should undertake no
longer round of duties than should be agreeable to him.
But although engaged in secular pursuits, he could not
abandon a spiritual caUing. He was and continued to be a
preacher, obeying his parents' wishes out of filial respect alone,
but Uving with his whole heart in another sphere. Eveiy
Sabbath he used to call around hira in his own house assem
blages to worship, and what was the raost reraarkable, even

ZINZENDOEF THE FOUNDEE OF THE MORAVIANS. 1.53
Loscher, director of religious affairs in Dresden, otherwise
rigidly orthodox and severe towards the pietists, tolerated
these raeetings, and assured Zinzendorf of his syrapathy.
But the tirae had now corae for the Count to break away
frora the old conditions of his life, to sunder his connection
with pietisra, to which he had been allied, and to transfer his
hopes and his energies to another sphere, to becorae the
founder, not of a new sect, but of a new church, one distin
guished frora any pietistic associations heretofore forraed, and
which should stand forth as a new feature in the history of
that century.
Zinzendorf, satisfied neither with the orthodoxy of his ,
time nor with the ruUng pietism, had long conteraplated the
union of all friends of the Saviour on coraraon ground, and to
this end he was wilUng to use his noble birth, as giving him
a larger measure of personal influence. He purchased of his
grandmother the estate of Berthelsdorf, and in May 1722 took
oaths of fealty frora its tenants. He established Andrew
Rothe, a young rainister, who had his full confldence, as pastor
of the doraain, and in Septeraber of the sarae year he was
raarried to Erdrauthe Dorothea, the sister of his friend the
Count of Reuss. Of her, Zinzendorf testified twenty-five
years later, that she was the only one who could have adapted
herself to every winding and corner of his nature. " Who
could have lived," he asks, "less subject to the world's criti
cism ? Who could have aided rae so rauch in laying , a bann
on raere dead raorality ? Who so thoroughly comprehended
the lifeless Phariseeism which had ruled for years ? Who saw
more clearly into the hearts of the impostors who would gladly
have joined their fortunes to ours? Who could have Ufted
from ray shoulders raore corapletely the burden of household
cares ? Who could have administered aU my business affairs
in so pradent and successful a manner as she? Who could
have lived so econoraically, and yet so weU, as she ? Who
could have been so hurable, and yet so dignified ? Who could
better have taken now the place of servant, and now mistress,
and yet discharged her duties in both situations with equal
honour? Who could have bome such pilgrimages by land
and sea with more heroic endurance than she ?"
The estabUshment of the new brotherhood was simultane-

134 ZINZENDOEF, THE FOUNDEE OF THE MOEAVIANS.
OUS with his entrance on domestic life, and his coining into
the possession of his estates. But afready in the seventeenth
century some merabers of the Boheraian Church which Huss
had forraed even before the great Reformation, had left theu:
forraer horae in Moravia, and had gone forth to form new
colonies in Poland, Saxony, and Prussia.
Christian David, born in 1690, at Senftleben, Moravia, had
been awakened whUe a boy, tending his father's sheep ; then,
travelling as a valet, everywhere seeking peace for his soul,
he had at last, while at GorUtz, in company with the pastors
there, come to a deeper insight into evangeUcal trath, and to
a certain degree of satisfaction and corafort. He then was
anxious to irapart to his brothers in Moravia the sarae blessing
which he had enjoyed. He made them a visit, told them
what he had experienced, and awakened in them a desire to
leave thefr own country and to settle down with Christian
people, that they might be better taught in these things. In
a subsequent interview with Zinzendorf, he disclosed to him
the necessitous circurastances of his brothers, and the Count
was willing to give thera a horae on his own estates. Darid
retraced his steps to Moravia with the good news, that God
had touched a nobleraan's heart, and had inclined him to give
them a horae. The brothers fell on their knees, and thanked
God for opening this path to thera. They iraraediately started
for Upper Lusatia, Christian David at their head. It was
but a little company. On the I7th of June 1722, thefirst
tree was feUed for the building of their village. The cham
berlain of Zinzendorf deUvered the address at the dedication,
and he it was who gave the name Hennhut ^ to the colony,
taking it in part from the narae of the hiU on which the
village should be built. Two years later the name thus given
began to come into coraraon use. Towards the end of Decem
ber the Count raade his first visit to the place. When he
arrived he entered the newly-built house, fell on his knees,
thanked the Saviour for bringing the newcoraers thither, and
recoraraended them to the grace of God.
Frora this time the desire grew strong in Zinzendorf s
mind of realizing Spener's idea of benefiting the Church, by
founding a Church within itself. He connected himself with
' Herrnhut, the Lord's Protection. The hill was called Hutberg.

ZINZENDOEF, THE FOUNDEE OF THE MOEAVIANS. 135
his chaplain Rothe, his friend Wattewil, and with Schbfer,
the pastor of GorUtz, and called it the Union of the Four
Brothers. These men, thus associated, made it their special
charge to exert a healthful influence on the Christian world,
as they might find opportunity, especially by the agency of
edifying pubUcations, several of which Zinzendorf himsejf
wrote. The regular meetings, which soon drew together
other friends, were called Conferences. The Count often
preached at Berthelsdorf : he regarded himself as the spfritual
coUeague of Pastor Rothe and on the Sabbath afternoons his
habit was to go over the serraon which had been preached in
the moming and have a kind of catechizing. Soon people
from the neighbourhood began to take a part, and other
Moravians arrived and increased the nuraber of the colony.
On the 12th of May 1724 the foundation-stone of a church
was laid. In the course of the address which Zinzendorf
deUvered on the occasion, he said, " May God suffer this
house to stand no longer than while it shall reraain the
home of love and peace." The bystanders felt the weight of
his words ; for even then the seeds of discord had been sown
in the Uttle colony. From the beginning the Moravians
were not of one mind. Lutherans and Calvinists had thefr
contentions about the Lord's Supper ; others had even
brought in Socinian opinions ; others, especiaUy the later
comers, wished to enforce a rigid system of discipline, which
the older raerabers steadfastly opposed. Zinzendorf was the
more troubled about these contentions, since the errors and
exaggerations which carae to the public knowledge were
attributed to hira, and it was not long before the most inju
rious reports were disserainated regarding the new society.
In the year 1727 the Count had given up his dwelUng in
Dresden, and had taken up his abode with the colony. For
a time he took the post of superintendent, and gave the peo
ple a constitution and a more permanent organization, and
wrote, journeyed, worked, straggled, and prayed for them
incessantly. .For himself, he was content to remain a
Lutheran of the Augsburg Confession, yet always anxiously
keeping himseK from any intolerance towards Christians of other
denorainations. Yet this, and his kindly intercourse with
pious Catholics, gained him a repute for indifference to reli-

136 ZINZENDOEF, THE FOUNDEE OF THE MOEAVIANS.
gious distinctions. The very manner in which he expressed
himself on religious subjects gave those who detect heresy
behind all unusual forms of speech, a suspicion of his sound
ness in faith. Even tbe pietists of Halle were not satisfied
with hira, since he dwelt less than they upon the atonement,
^d raore upon the extent of salvation than on the power of
sin ; more on the love of God and joy in Him, than on the
fear of God. " He makes religion too easy," they said ; and
because he did not profess to have felt that inward struggle
over the atoning blood, of which they spoke rauch, they even
denied hira the right of being caUed a Christian. The
CathoUcs also looked at hira with an evil eye, and the Jesuits
went so far as to accuse hira to the Eraperor of being a plot
ter against him, of setting his subjects against him, and win
ning thera over to a new faith. And so, whUe Zinzendorf
was entering upon a course of activities quite enough to
absorb his whole energies, a series of attacks began upon him
from every quarter, even from the very body which he was
engaged in founding. With all this his spirit remained
strong and his faith unbroken.
With a view to live entfrely to the great purpose of his
Ufe, Zinzendorf finally concluded to take upon himself, form
aUy, the functions of the priestly office. He submitted his
plan to the oldest members of the colony ; but they, and his
wife still more, found difficulties in the way. So, to solve
these doubts, he determined to have recurrence to the lot, the
usual way with his people for settUng all doubtful questions.
The lot confirmed his own choice. It so happened that
about that time a merchant in Stralsund sent to Zinzendorf
for a Moravian tutor for his children; and the Count resolved
to take the place hiraself, and traveUed to Stralsund under
the name of Louis von Freidick, to avail himself of this
opportunity to be exarained and ordained. On the way he
was corapeUed to hear raany unpleasant things of himself and
his colony. On the Ilth of April 1734 he read his trial
serraon at Stralsund with great applause. He completed his
exaraination and returned to Hennhut with a fine reputation
for soundness of faith, and laid aside the advocate's badge for
ever. The same year he was ordained with aU the formali
ties of such occasions. But other raeans were required to

ZINZENDOEF, THE FOUNDEE OF THE MOEAVIANS. 137
put the other members of the comraunity in a position so
that they could go forth as missionaries to the heathen, and
celebrate the ordinances of baptism and the Lord's supper.
The candidates were mostly artizans, raen without education,
who could not pass through a theological exaraination as Zin
zendorf had done, and there was no ground for *» hope that a
Lutheran consistory would adrait them to ordination. They
must get help elsewhere. Just then the old custom of the
Moravians came to their relief From reraote times they had
had bishops who could consecrate, by the laying on of hands,
any whom they might think worthy of thp pastoral offitje ;
and so it only becarae necessary to find a bishop in order to
raake the thing complete. In Berlin there was Uving the
oldest of the Moravian bishops, — Jablonsky, preacher to the
king. Zinzendorf appUed to him, and recoraraended David
.Nitschmann, one of the raost active raerabers of the cora
munity, a man who had already preached to the negroes in
the West Indies, with the request that he would consecrate
him to ministerial' labours. This met Jablonski's instant
approval, and was done.
We pass over the journeys, more or less extensive, which
Zinzendorf undertook in the furtherance of his work — the
associations which he formed in North and South Germany,
in Switzerland,. Denraark, Sweden, and Holland — the opposi
tion which he encountered — the huraUiations to which he was
subjected, the conversions which were the result of his preach
ing, and we recount only the leading events of his Ufe. Among
these is to be reckoned the edict of King Augustus of Saxony,
issued in 1 736, driving hira from that kingdom in consequence
of his teaching false doctrine and promulgating dangerous
principles. Zinzendorf accepted even this in a worthy spirit,
and felt no bitterness towards the king, whora he recognized
as his rightful lord. Yet he had to look hira out a new horae.
This he found in a half ruined castle on the Ronneberg.
Hither he took his wife, and a handful of his best co-workers.
Soon he coUected new asserablages frora the neighbourhood,
as at Herrnhut, and the seed of the new doctrine, driven from
Saxony by the storm, was only wafted a little further away,
to take new root in the Rhine country, and bear the same
fruit anew. Zinzendorf hiraself did not reraain long there.

138 ZINZENDOEF, THE FOUNDEE OF THE M0EA"V1ANS.
He journeyed eastward as far as Livonia. The new colony
of Salzburgers in Lithuania drew his special attention and
interest. He had previously enjoyed himself rauch with these
simple people, and had addressed a raeraorial to Frederick
Williara the First, King of Prussia, regarding them, but now
he took occasion to coraraend thera in person to the favour
able notice of that singular and capricious monarch. Zinzen
dorf was formaUy presented to the king at Wustershausen.
Frederick WUUam had iraagined Zinzendorf to be " a merry
or a melancholy fanatic, a feUow half ridiculous and half for
midable," but the interview with hira displayed him in so
different a light, that he confessed to his court, " that he had
been purposely deceived and Ued to about the Count, that
there was nothing the matter with him about heresy or state
affairs ; his only sin was, that being a nobleraan, and having
a pohte air, he had given hiraself to the preaching of the
Gospel : in short, the devils in hell could not lie worse than
he had been lied to about Zinzendorf."
The favour of the king was of this advantage to him, that
it secured hira the sarae service from Jablonsky which had
before been conferred upon Nitschraann. The ordination did
not take place, however, tiU a year subsequently. Meanwhile,
Zinzendorf's wife and friends had left Ronneberg, and had
gone to Frankfort-on-the-Main, where he soon after met them.
Here he entered, as elsewhere, upon the functions of a preacher,
and raade the doctrine of reconciliation, or, in his words, " the
grace founded on the blood of the Larab of God, which does
not admit of one spark of self-righteousness to be mingled
with it," the ground thought of his sermons. It was a serious
stumbUng-block to many, when he insisted that the most
devout citizen of Frankfort could not "be justified on any
other ground than the highway robber broken on the wheel.
In the neighbourhood of the city, at the castle of Marienbom,
the Moravians held their first Synod, near the close of tbe
year 1736. Soon after this, Zinzendorf undertook a joumey
to HoUand and England, and not long after he received oflicial
permission to enter Saxony again. Thus he could once more
look upon his beloved Hennhut : but soon after, on declining
to sign a declaration which he could not honourably agree to,
he was once more driven frora the country.

ZINZENDOEF, THE FOUNDEE OF THE MOEAVIANS. 1 39
Zinzendorf, after this second repulse, turned his steps to
Berlin, and there delivered lectures in a private house, first
twice a week and then four times. The press to see and
hear him, even of the raost noted in the fashionable world,
was so great that, at one tirae, forty-two coaches were counted
before the door. In 1739 he went to the West Indies in order
to visit the Islands of St. Croix and St. Thomas, where the
Moravians had established missions. At St. Thoraas he found
his brethren in much trouble, brought on them by the plant
ers' resentment at their preaching to the negroes. Frora the
West Indies the Count went to Switzerland; and, while at
Basle he wrote to a friend, under date of January 28, 1740,
frora which letter I wQl quote some lines which iUustrate hap
pily Zinzendorf's raode of thought and expression, and give
us sorae insight into the great purpose of his life.
" It is now soraewhat over thirty years since I first ex
perienced the power of divine grace drawing rae to the cross of
Christ ; but in all that I have atterapted and done, I have
laboured entirely for Jesus' sake, and never for any side pur
poses whatever ; nor was it at aU to ray taste that my narae
should be glorified in preaching Christ. Naturally, I was fond
of horses, of show, and was enaraoured of the reputation of a
Xenophon, a Brutus, or a Seneca. The arabition of my parents
and of my grandparents conformed to ray own inclination — ray
education ran in the sarae line, and I well knew that no
government had ever been founded on truly Christian ideas.
Yet I gave aU up for Jesus' sake. My training was tedious
and confused. . . . As to ray general plan, I have none,
but go on frora year to year, following the Saviour's direction,
and do with ray whole heart what I can do. I have, in
deed, marked out certain leading courses ; I have had, for ex
ample, as one object of ray life, the preserving of the Mora
vian church as pure as possible, and safe frora the attacks of
any plundering wolf; another object which I cherish is the
sending the gospel to as raany heathen as I can, and raake
them share in the benefits of the blood of Christ ; another
wish of ray heart is to fulfU the prayer of the Saviour con
tained in John xvii., and to bring the whole children of God
into feUowship, not by making Moravians of them, but by en
joining unity upon the whole church : another purpose of my

140 ZINZENDOEF, THE FOUNDER OF THE MORAVIANS.
life is to bring as many souls as possible to a conviction of
sin, and to the grace in Christ ; and, for this, I labour ear
nestly, and have sometiraes travelled over three hundred miles
at once to preach his blessed gospel ; and now, after following
these great purposes so long, from 1717 to 1739, T am com
pelled to surrender them, and to leave them all with God, not
seeing myself the end of all these things, but confident that
divine Providence will cause thera all to result in accordance
with His great plans."
The foUowing year he visited Switzerland once more, taking
Geneva in his route. Then he tumed his thoughts to an ex
tensive tour, being no less a one than to North America,
accorapanied by his daughter, then sixteen years of age. On
the Delaware river he found a Moravian colony already
planted, out of which grew, at a later period, the villages of
Nazareth and Bethlehem. In America he formally laid down
his title of count, and in the presence of some eminent wit
nesses, among thera Benjamin FrankUn, he took the name of
Thumstein ; but he was generally known under the title of
Brother Lewis or Friend Lewis. The numerous sects in the
United States furnished raany points to which he could easily
make an attachraent, but, on the other hand, their existence
raised raany difficulties in his way. He first directed his
energies to the Lutherans, whora he consolidated into an
organization ; he also preached to the Calvinists ; but he could
raake little impression on those of New England descent. As
an example of their dreadful intolerance towards Zinzendorf,
it is said that he was once fined for breaking the Sabbath, m
consequence of transcribing on that day a hymn which he had
coraposed. He afterwards journeyed into the interior to preach the
gospel to the Indians : and, while on this tour, he at one
time fell into danger of being killed, but, at another, was
treated with the high honour of receiving the belt of beads, XT
which was given by the Indians as a token of amity. He
soon returned, however, to the Continent by way of England.
Not yet wearied with traveUing, Zinzendorf cast his glance
upon Livonia and Russia ; but he was forbidden to enter the
last-named country, as his wife had gained an evil name there
as the founder of a sect. The count was arrested at Riga.

ZINZENDORF, THE FOUNDEE OF THE MORAVIANS. 141
The Erapress Elizabeth, to whom he then applied, gave him
the short answer, " The sooner he took himself out of Russian
territory the better ; " and when he requested an investigation
into the evil reports spread about him, he was told that " her
Majesty did not find it necessary to enter upon one." And so
he was conducted to the frontier by a railitary escort, and
there tarried for sorae tirae in Silesia, where there was a nura
ber of Moravian settleraents.
We orait the recital of his raany journeys, his plans, the in
stitutions established — the obstacles which met hira both
among the Moravians and outside of his own people — the
uncounted writings which he put forth, aud those which
appeared against hira. We need only say that," in the year
1747, the sentence of banishraent from Saxony was withdrawn
— that he passed the period between 1751 and 1755 in
England, whore his influence gained from Parliaraent a recog
nition of his brotherhood— that, after losing his son Renatus
and his wife, he was raarried, in 175 7, to Anna Nitschraann,
a friend and helper of long standing ; and that lastly he died
the 9th of May, 1760, at Herrnhut. An attack of catarrh
had irapeded his speech; but, although he could hardly speak,
he called his son-in-law to hira and said, in a feeble voice,
" My dear son, I am now going horae. I ara wholly recon
cUed to God's will. He is content with rae. I ara ready to
go, nothing now stands in ray way." When he had closed his
eyes, his son-in-law said, " Lord, now lettest thou thy servant
depart in peace;" and, as he pronounced the word "peace,"
Zinzendorf drew his last breath. His decease was announced
in a manner common araong the Moravians, by the notes of a
trumpet. The whole colony assembled at his deathbed, and,
with bended knees, thanked the Saviour for the usefulness
which he had so signally blessed in the departed. On the
next day the body was robed in a gown, such as the Moravian
bishops wear, and, placed in a violet-coloured coffin, was
visited by the whole brotherhood present in procession, the
children leading the way, and all uniting in a sacred song. A
week after his death he was buried. Two thousand strangers
cam-e to witness the funeral obsequies, and walked behind the
body ; and thirty-two rainisters and raissionaries, ?orae from
England, HoUand, North Araerica, and Greenland, who were

142 ZINZENDOEF, THE FOUNDEE OF THE MOEAVIANS.
present, bore the bier, the whole convocation joining in the
choral — " How blessed now thy sleep,
How sweet thy peaceful dream.''
At his left hand his flrst wife was buried ; at his right the
second, who survived hira only a month. By his first mar
riage he had six sons and six daughters ; only three daughters
survived him, and they laboured for the brotherhood to the
end of their life. Zinzendorf died without means. "I
sought," he could weU say, "not yours, but you. No one shall
say that I have made rayself rich. I have not for years laid
out a hundred dollars annuaUy for ought excepting the bare
necessaries of life."
In figure Zinzendorf was large, sUra in youth, but in later
years stout. His caniage was free, and indicated a gentle
bringing up. As to the coraraon saying, that he had a way of
hanging his head, it is enough to remark that, so far from this
being the case, he always carried his head reraarkably erect
His features were regular — his forehead high — his eyes blue
and gentle, and fuU of larabent fiarae — his nose slightly
Roraan — his raouth expressing a fine blending of seriousness
with amiability. " He had," says his biographer Schrauten
bach, "a manly, pleasant, fuU-toned voice, adapted alike to
speaking and to singing. The difficult art, or rather the high
gift, of laying the accent with exact discrimination, and the
accompanying his voice with the appropriate gesture, was
natural to him. Life, soul, and a happy blending of the best
qualities, characterised all that he did. If he consecrated a
bishop, or presided at an ordination, and raised his right hand
to pronounce a blessing, it produced a visible sensation
throughout the audience. Especially impressive was his
bearing while administering the sacraments. His appearance
was noble, and the starap of power was on his every motion.
He was a noticeable man when seen in the company of the most
poUshed, or walking quietly along the streets of London or
Arasterdara ; and the respect paid hira, the stepping out of his
way as he approached, the involuntary bowing to him, and
the desire to do hira service, were always raarked. He uni
forraly dressed in the raost simple and unstudied way, was
never suraptuously lodged, indifferent to furniture, never

ZINZENDOEF, THE FOUNDEE OF TjHE MOEAVIANS. 143
valued merely external things, and ascribing Uttle worth to
the trifles of life. Of aU things which concerned his person,
clothing, food, and the like, strangely inconsiderate.
In conversation the count was lively, sociable, and uncora
raonly entertaining ; a lover of rairth and of an innocent joke,
even if he himself were the subject of it. Yet no one was on
terms of famiUarity with hira. ... In professional mat
ters he had nothing of a dictatorial tone, as though absolute
master of affairs. He could chide ; and it is the case, perhaps,
that once in a whUe he had better have suppressed his feel
ings, yet he never said what would lower him in any eyes. . . .
In respect to his scientific attainraents and general knowledge
he was only a self-raade raan, and therefore not araenable to
criticisra on these points. He read little, the Bible almost
exclusively, and, in the last twenty years of his life, perhaps
no other spiritual book ; he wrote rauch and raeditated rauch.
His writings and serraons are not elaborate productions ; for
his mind was far too lively to dwell very long on a single
theme. The active life of a raan who thought rauch, wrote,
preached, coraposed hyrans, builded, raade all kind of business
arrangements, visited reraote places, is like the sight of a new
and great city rising in the raidst of the waters, here a palace,
there a hut — a large and confused picture, not to be studied
in detaU, but to be looked at in reference to the coraposition
of the whole." So far Schrautenbach.
The extent of Zinzendorf's labours was very great. He planted
his colonies in Norway, Greenland, and Lapland, in Ethiopia,
Guinea, and araong the Hottentots, in Russia, Persia, and
Palestine : he scattered his ideas throughout North and South
America and the West India islands, and sent missionaries to
almost all parts of the globe, to labour for the glory of that
Saviour for whom he Uved. The names of the chief Moravian
colonies still existing are well known : Barby, Niesky, Gnadau,
Gnadanfrei, Gnadenfeld, Christiansfeld, Konigsfeld, Neuwied,
Neudietendorf, and Ebersdorf These are raostly in Gerraany,
the great scene of his active labours and his chief triumphs.
Zinzendorf and the Moravian brotherhood, whose history
we have now briefly sketched, have from the ffrst been vari
ously judged. It was not people of the world alone, professed
unbelievers, who discovered stumbUng-blocks m the Count

144 ZINZENDORF, THE FOUNDER OF THE MORAVIANS.
hiraself and in his doctrines, nor was it the orthodox alone,
bound to dead forms ; but leamed and pious men, among
whora I raention even Bengel, found rauch exception to
hira and his views. Even the brotherhood itself was not
always satisfied with its founder, yet it never took offence at
what occurred within itself and went forth fi-ora itself: and
so we are often surprised at a want of coherence between the
judgments passed on Zinzendorf himself and the system which
was his own plan and work, and which bore in every part the
imprint of its designer's raind.
Beginning with the man, we have already drawn a sketch
of his personnel, as his coteraporaries have given it to us.
They evidently did not consider the Count free from faults,
and he hiraself, least of all. In his Reflections on the year
1742, he has thus painted hiraself and given this testimony.
" Frora ray childhood up I have had but one object, the gloiy
of the Lord Jesus Christ, the crucified ; and I have always been
unwiUing to enter into discussions which touch on other religi
ous themes. Other foundation know I not, save Jesus Christ, the
Son of the living God ; but I can bear well with all who build
on this foundation, though they build differently from me. I
am perfectly free frora crookedness of mind, I always live in
fear before God, in love to all men, and on terms of perfect
confidence wdth the brethren ; I am most open to my own
censure, and on account of my free manner of speaking, I do
not put the bridle on ray tongue when I should, and so some
tiraes say what I ought not, but always say from my heart
what I say. ,In raost matters of opinion very liberal, in action
severe and almost intolerant : in the doctrine of the divinity
of Christ set and unchangeable : in reUgion a friend of every
name, order, or persuasion : in the brotherhood an advocate of
a comraunity of interests, of order, and of rigid disciphne, yet
without wishing to enforce these outside of my own domain.
It is not my object to establish one visible churcli, but many
churches. They who draw themselves off from the great
church, do wrong, and they who separate from the smaller
churches araong which they live, are selfish or visionary. U
is the wish of ray heart to establish the Moravian brother
hood on the freest, raost siraple, raost orderly basis, and to
raake rayself one of the lowest among the brethren, for I hate

ZINZENDOEF, THE FOUNDEE OF THE MOEAVIANS. 14b
aU lordship in this matter. AU else that is said about me is
a slander and a Ue. God and the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ knows that I lie not." " I have only one passion," he
writes in another place, " and it is He, only He." And yet
Zinzendorf confesses very frankly that his genius often leads
him into extravagances, and his friend Schrautenbach, afready
quoted, expressly begins his biography with these words,
" Count Zinzendorf was not a man without faults," and else
where confesses that the fire of his nature, and his glowing
imagination, soraetiraes led hira astray.
Schrautenbach discrirainates a nuraber of periods in the life
of his fiiend. " In his chUdhood he was obliged to yield to
others. So we find in all that is left of his between the age
of twenty-seven and forty-two, a quiet, contented spirit ; frora
that period to the age of fifty-five, we detect a self-exalted
spirit, but thence to the age of sixty, we find him drawing
back within himself, and testing his system by the probe of
experience. His life has confirmed his own ground principle,
which he put forth as chief of all, that no one is good save
God alone, but it also showed the power which a systera,
embraced by the heart, can have upon the whole actions of a
man, and how the Ufe of faith in Christ can change the will
and soften the heart."
That Zinzendoif was a man of earnestness, no one will
doubt. And who shall be his judge, how far human weak
nesses may have had dominion over hira ? But though we
acknowledge the noble direction which his nature took, and
the piety and purity of his motives, although we confess that
his appearing in the age in which he did appear, was a neces
sary and useful phenomenon, for which we ought to be grate
ful, yet the task remains to us, after the waves of passion have
swept by, and the act has appeared in the heavens, of subject
ing the man and his doctrines to the irapartial scrutiny of
history. To this end we must first inquire, what was his own
aim, what he purposed to effect. It was not a reforraation of
the world, but a bringing of raen's souls to the Saviour, and
the preparing of thera for His second coraing. This we recog
nize as his chief service, that in a time when so many were
scattered, he drew them together, and when so many hearts
were cold, he awakened in thera the glow of a new spiritual
K

146 ZINZENDOEF, THE FOUNDEE OF THE MOEAVIANS.
life. Zinzendorf was no dogmatic theorizer, he was a practical
organizer, and in that his great strength lay. Unpractical as
he was in external things (often lost in reverie and sunk in
thought even while on his walks, unable to reckon money and
the like), yet in aU reUgious affairs he was thoroughly practi
cal, and his power displayed itself in most of his arrangementa.
It was not Zinzendorfs theology, not his language and pre
sentation of thought which made him great ; on the contrary,
these helped to raake his narae a laughing-stock with the
world, and an offence even to orthodox Christians : they are
not what was durable in his work. Yet it is our duty to
raake a brief exposition of Zinzendorf's reUgious views, becom
ing, as they did, with raore or less change, the doctrines of the
Brotherhood. We will pass over all the unworthy and
venomous attacks which were made upon hira, embracing not
only the charge of aU imaginable heresies, but of atheism itself
From his opponents we will select only the worthiest one,
Bengel, whose narae and whose praise are on every hp.
It needs only a superficial glance at the doctrines of Zin
zendorf to see that Christ, Christ the Crucified, was its middle
point, its great suraraary of contents. Taken in its general
aspect, no one can say aught against this : on the contrary,
this must be confessed to be the priraitive, apostolic doctrine.
And further thought wiU only confu'ra the happy conjunction
of events which at the tirae when Voltaire was imposing on
himself the task of banishing all thought of the Crucified
One frora the hearts of raen, a raan arose, who although from
his position he raight have Uved in the enjoyment of aU the
}>leasures of life, gave up everything, shunned no shame, no
loss, that he might raise the Lamb of God to his throne, and
make His sufferings the basis of aU theological theory and
practice. But if we look closer at the teachings of Zinzendorf
about 'Christ and His sufferings, especiaUy if we weigh the
expressions which he used, we need not wonder if he caused
unbelievers to be repulsed rather than to be attracted, and u
believers Uke Bengel considered it a duty to put men on theu'
guard against hira. As is often the case, that those whose
duty is to reaffirm a rejected truth, cany it to an extreme
which is itself an enor, so was it with Zinzendorf The doc
trine of the divinity of Christ had been cast aside, first by the

ZINZENDOEF, THF, FOUNDEE OF THE MOEAVIANS. 147
Socinians, then by the deists, and even the milder rationalism
which was then just coraing into being, but which has since
becorae so formidable, left Christ's person, work, and suffering,
in the back-ground, bringing morality into undue prominence,
and exalted the human element in Jesus above the divine.
The conviction that a belief in God, the Creator and Sustainer
of all things, and that a virtuous life crowned with its due
reward, were the only valuable truths of religion, was a con
viction which had become widely prevalent, and had found
lodgment in many exceUent minds. This conviction Zinzen
dorf met with his whole power, and against the one-sided
doctrine of God the Father, whora raany supposed they could
approach without the Son, he brought the equally one-sided
doctrine of God the Son, whora he placed undeniably in the
place of the Father. Although the Scriptures so fully show
that through the Son we are led to the Father, and narae the
Father Creator of the heaven and the earth, and bid us pray to
him through Christ, and in Christ's narae, Zinzendorf bids us
to know no God but the Saviour. It is true that he gained
more power over the heart by bringing Jesus so prominently
forward, than those had who went no further than the abstract
idea of a higher Being. StiU he went further, and not only
ignored the existence of God the Father, but eraployed expres
sions of great harshness against what he called the God-Father
religion. In this way he lost the great doctrine of the Media-
torship of Christ, and obscured the fuU significance of the
Trinity. It is without doubt a great defect in his teaching
that he made so Uttle account of the attributes of God the
Father. As Bengel says in his naive way, " We ought not to
leap over the Son ; nor ought we leap over the Father : and
if Zinzendorf supposes that they are eneraies to the Saviour
who do not assign to hira the Father's place, he too could be
charged with enraity to the Father, on the same ground,
which would assuredly be doing him a great injustice."
No less one-sided was Zinzendorf in his representation of
the sacrifice of Christ. Here, again, is a deep reUgious neces
sity, which had driven him frora his chUdhood up to t,he suf
fering Saviour, and in this strong love to Jesus the Crucified,
the one great and absorbing passion of his life, there is sorae
thing grand and beautiful. In this Bengel was entirely at

148 ZINZENDOEF, THE FOUNDEE OF THE MOEAVIANS.
one with Zinzendorf for he, too, would acknowledge no basis
of salvation save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. But it was
this which Bengel so severely criticised in Zinzendorf, that he
did not make the sufferings of the Saviour merely the central
point of theology, but its sura total. Nor did he relish the
dwelUng upon those of His sufferings ap])reciable by the
senses alone, the exclusive aUusion to the blood, the wounds,
the print of the naUs, the piercing of the side. It did not
escape the observation of so close a student of the Scriptures
as Bengel, that the sufferings of Christ are always united in
the closest union with His hfe, His actions. His teachings, on
the one hand ; and with His resunection and glorification on
the other, and that only in this mutual connection has the
cross its true significance. Nowhere in the words of Jesus,
nor in the apostoUcal writings, did he discover an effeminate
tone and a dealing with the cross as a pure object of sense,
and he wished an equal purity and strength in those who
wish to preach the cross with power. Nor did this able and
yet truly pious critic consider the expressions which are
called forth, and the tears which are shed at the representa
tion of the physical sufferings of Jesus to be the most truth
ful token of a reconciled spirit : he feared that thereby men
raight faU into a false security and fail of a true conversion.
" The raere hearing and speaking of the wounds of Jesus,"
says Bengel, " ends in nought but words. There are those
who only name Christ, and never know hira. Even they who
always bring prorainently forward the sufferings of the Saviour
raake them comraon, and cannot ward off a misuse of what
should be so rare and precious. They raake of the blood of
Christ an opiate to apply to thefr consciences, thinking that
thus they may better distinguish between right and wrong.
Through the supremacy which the Moravian scheme of doc
trine grants to the imagination, the Scripture itself is made
to pervert itself; the cross is buried beneath itself, the heart
is made the instruraent to lead itself away, human freedom
becoraes its own betrayer, and the sensibUities blunt their
own native delicacy." Bengel brings also as an especially
serious charge against Zinzendorf's teachings, that all rehgion
is narrowed down to the feeUngs : that the great questions
of duty are determined by the feelings alone. The Moravian

ZINZENDOEF, THE FOUNDEE OF THE MOEAVIANS. 149
doctrine wholly casts out fear : it does not subordinate it as
a motive, it ignores it wholly, and rests aU law, and all ira-
pulses to duty, siraply on looking ever to the Saviour's face.
Zinzendorf was a devout beUever in the Holy Writ.
Without going so far as to accept a verbal inspiration, or to
claira that there are no historical nor chronological enors in
the Bible, he did insist, vdth all sound Protestants, on the
sufficiency and the divine origin of the Scriptures.
In close conespondence with what has been said respecting
Zinzendorf's doctrines, stands his spiritual poetry, which has
been the fruitful source of much of the ridicule which has
been heaped upon him. That he had a genuine appreciation
of what was beautiful in the old lyrics of the church cannot
rightfully be denied, but so far as concerns his own writings,
it raust be confessed that they are of various quaUty. Some
of his hymns do not rise above the level of rhymed prose.
He had great facility in verse making, or, to use Herder's
expression, " that pliancy of speech, and that wealth of bold
iraages, and tender, devout phrases which often surprises,
often deceives with a false sense of beauty." Zinzendorf has
vrritten some hymns which should be excluded frora no collec
tion, and yet it must be confessed that the later Moravian
poets have far surpassed hira.
The foUowing raay be taken as an exaraple of his most
successful efforts in sacred poetry : —
Jesus go before,
Open heaven's door,
Not much longer will we tarry,
After Thee our cross to carry,
Lead us by the hand
To the promised land.
Though we prosper not,
Stand we in our lot ;
Even in the darkest days, Lord,
Sad complaints we will not raise, Lord ;
For through Sorrow's sea
Leads the way to Thee.
If some painful smart
Anguishes our heart,
If another's grieving move us,
Let the fiery trial prove us ;
Thy own patience give,
Patiently to live.

150 ZINZENDOEF, THE FOUNDEE OF THE MOEAVIANS.
Order all our way
While on earth we stay ;
Eough the paths through which we're faring,
Ne'er withheld our Father's caring :
Jesus, go before,
Open heaven's door.
We now advance to the consideration of the constitution
and the interior organization of the Brotherhood, in relation
to the church universal on the one hand, and to Protestantism
on the other. In the capacity for organizing such a com
raunity, the greatness of Zinzendorf appears not in his dog
matic theology, nor in his poetry. It is not Zinzendorf the
theologian, it is not Zinzendorf the poet who calls out our
wonder : for as a theologian he was far surpassed by Bengel,
and as a poet by Freilinghaus, Tersteegen, and HiUer, but the
Zinzendorf who created an epoch in history is the founder of
a Brotherhood. Whoever casts a glance back at the begin
nings of the Moravian raoveraent, at the varied and contra
dictory elements which cross each other, and^then looks at
the edifice as it now stands, which has been created in so
brief a time out of the older Moravian, Lutheran, Calvinistic,
and Pietistic materials, and has become so fair, so united, and
so strong a Church, raust adraire the skiU, the patience, the
power, and the prudence of the raan who could do aU this.
A one-sided, prejudiced, confused, and fanatical sectary would
never have accorapUshed it. For this work there was
needed a raan of tact, a man of the world, a man of large obser
vation, and having a thorough knowledge of men : there was
wanted a nature made to comraand, which works in perfect
quietness, vsdth the gentleness of the dove, and yet with the
wisdora ofthe serpent, which goes in raeekness to take possession
of the earth, which knows how to eraploy every gift of God
with an eye single to the winning of souls to its great object.
It may, indeed, be said of Zinzendorf that circumstances
corabined to further his designs ; but to look through and
control the cfrcurastances of one's lot, is the work of a man of
raind and power. This power of winning the souls of men to
one's self raay becorae a dangerous one, as the history of the
Church abundantly shows ; and there have not been wanting
those who have charged Zinzendorf with a desire to establish
a Papacy within the Protestant Church. But every one is

ZINZENDOEF, THE FOUNDEE OF THE MOEAVIANS. 151
exposed to this chairge who undertakes to organize any new
movement in the church. Luther and Calvin even were
called minor popes. It depends entirely upon the fact whether
the power of controUing the rainds of others is usurped, or
the result of natural gifts. That Zinzendorf would usurp no
lordship over the consciences of men is evident from what he
has left on record, in a passage which we have quoted — " I
hate all lordship among the brethren." But when people wil
lingly gave up to his judgment, and yielded implicitly to
him, it was a matter of their own choosing. How often
Luther warned his friends not to become Lutheran, and not
to take his words as the Truth, and yet all in vain. And so
Zinzendorf, though not anxious to becorae a spiritual hierarcli
in any bad sense, could not prevent men fr-om becoming, to
use Bengel's expressive phrase, " a lump of wax in his fingers,
to be shaped as he might please." There have not been want
ing those, too, who have not hesitated to institute a compari
son between tbe Moravian Brotherhood in the Protestant, and
the Orders in the CathoUc Church. The Jesuits even have
been cited, not without sorae show of reason, as not unlike
Zinzendorfs Brethren. And, indeed, whoever looks at the
external forras, and at the raere machinery of the religious
orders, at the prompt obedience to authority, at the immense
influence which the esprit du corps gains to every association,
and at the great geographical extent under command, wUl not
wonder that such parallels should be instituted. But whoever
looks deeper, whoever goes to the bottom of things, and marks
the fundamental difference between Catholicism and Protest
antism, sees that, so far fi-ora having a coraraon goal, they
run to opposite poles, as nothing has more conclusively shown
than the missions estabUshed respectively by the Moravians
and the Jesuits. It was, fooUshly said, that " over Herrnhut
Ues the way to Rorae." As according to the old proverb,^ all
"roads converge at Rome," it raight be true that some
Moravians, araong others, were led thither, but surely their
number was not greater than those who have found their
way thither through other paths not so severely criticised.
" But," it may be asked, " is it not trae that -Moravian
colonies have always assuraed a cloister-Uke character ? " Yes,
it is the fact that to many a soul the entering the Brother-

152 ZINZENDOEF, THE FOUNDEE OF THE MOEAVIANS.
hood has been as the entering a cloister to CathoUcs. But
when such a soul feels constrained by the pressure of
its hard circumstances to withdraw frora the world, to flee
frora its storray lot to a safe harbour and spend the re
raainder of its days in religious raeditation, is there, we
would ask, anything unprotestant in it, anything which
opposes man's natural freedora ? I, at least, have heard of no
soleran vows which perrait no return to the world. And
there have not been wanting words of regret that in the
Protestant Church we lack those places of retreat in which
those who long for perfect retireraent and for sweet rehgious
coraraunion with those like-rainded with theraselves, can have
this natural wish gratified : and is it not a matter of con
gratulation that the Moravians have raet this want, and given
us in so simple a way those places to which men may with
draw and be at rest and commune with God, and yet be free
to return to the world when they wiU ?
In contrast with the Catholicising tendency which has been
ascribed to the Moravians, is the charge of sectarianism. How
far the Brotherhood can be regarded as a sect is a matter
which has been largely discussed. Zinzendorf veiy plainly
declared that he would be the founder of no sect. He dif
fered widely frora Spener, who proposed to exert an influence
upon the State Church, by establishing raany rainor churches.
Zinzendorf on the other hand, did not believe in founding a
nuraber of small churches, but of estabUshing a Brotherhood,
and so of introducing into the bosom of the State Church,
a new and productive force, which should renew it, work
ing like leaven within it. Such a fact not only disproves in
an instant the charge of sectarianism in Zinzendorf", but shows
the extent and grandeur of his scheme. He had clearly seen,
by the gradual decay of the Pietist Churches estabhshed by
Spener, that that was an ineffective method, and so he had
corae to the great and fruitful conception of implanting his
Brotherhood in the very heart of the Church itself
That Zinzendorf kept this great conception always in mind
is manifest from the care with which he always sought to
maintain the different religious orders, and not have them
blend in one and lose the old distinctions of sect By keep
ing the Lutherans distinctly Lutheran, the Calvinists distinctly

ZINZENDOEF, THE FOUNDEE OF THE MOEAVIANS. 153
Calvinistic, and so forth, he hoped to affect the different per
suasions more effectuaUy by the reaction of aU these agencies
upon the churches which they represented. Unfortunately,
this great conception of Zinzendorf has been too much forgot
ten or ignored by his successors, and the Moravian Brother
hood has taken a position more outside of the Church
than its founder intended that it should ever occupy. I
dare not venture on a decision how much this unfortu
nate result is owing to the peculiar customs which the
Moravians have adopted : the deciding of important raatters
by lot, the wearing of different coloured ribbons to desig
nate araong the women differences in age, and in domestic
relations, the partaking of the " love feast," and the washing
of each others' feet in connection with the Lord's Supper.
But this is certain, that to the Moravians we owe a large
measure of that practical Christian spirit which had so largely
disappeared from the world, but which has of late awakened
so rauch activity and beneficence. I need only refer to the
missionary efforts and the diffusion of the Bible, which,
though not priraarily proceeding frora the Moravians, have
been so greatly due to the preparation which was the work
of Zinzendoif and his successors.
We close by quoting a few words frora one who, although
a leader in the theology of the nineteenth century, was hiraself
trained in youth among the brotherhood. Schleiermaeher
writes in this strain, while on a visit to the Moravian colony
at Barby in 1802.
" Here it was that for the first time I awoke to the con- ,
sciousness of the relations of raan to a higher world. Here it
was that the mystic tendency developed itself which has been
of so much iraportance to me, and has supported and canied
me through all the storras of scepticisra. Then it was only
germinating, now it has attained its full developraent ; and I
may say that, after aU that I have passed through, I have be
come a Moravian again, only of a higher order."

1 5 4 SWEDENBOEG, HEINEICH, &C.

XIIL
SWEDENBORG, HEINRICH, STILLING, AND LAVATER,
THE MYSTICS.
In forraidable antagonisra to Gerraan infidelity was the school
of raystics, headed bj'^ Swedenborg, Heinrich, Stilling, and Lar
vater. These raen we raay caU theosophic mystics, if we do
not go so far as terra thera visionaries. Within the pale of
the pietists, and even araong the followers of Zinzendorf, there
had appeared tendencies to a belief in this phase of supra-
naturalisra, but with thera these tendencies were merely for
tuitous and transitory. The field which the pietists and the
Moravians chiefly tUled was the doraain of the practical The
rairacles of the raoral world, and raainly those connected with
the conversion of the soul, excited raore wonder with them
than rairacles in the natural world. Zinzendorf" did not claim
to have visions, nor did he believe that newer revelations
would ever supersede the Bible. In this he differed from
Swedenborg, who insisted upon the fact of a continued reve
lation, a power of coraraunicating still with the spirit world,
and of the possibility of miracles even now. And yet there
were vsdde differences in the views of this school of mystics.
WhUe Swedenborg was very far removed frora the common
views of the church, and from the reception of the letter of
Scripture, Stilling and Lavater, with all their lawless fancies,
clung to the Bible and to Christian doctrine as generally ax;-
cepted, and were rigid advocates of practical righteousness,
and so were bound by some ties to the pietists. Indeed,
Lavater was so many-sided, and united so raany contradic
tions in himself as to be very difficult to classify at all We
raust begin with Swedenborg.
Iramanuel Swedenborg was bom in 1689 at Stockholm.
His father, a Lutheran bishop, educated him in the principles
of rigid orthodoxy. Even when a child, people caught up his
expression that angels taught through his lips ; and, up to his
tenth year, he used to speak continually of such subjects as
faith and love. In 1710 he comraenced a series of travels

SWEDENBOEG, HEINEICH, fee. 155
through England, HoUand, France, and Gerraany, and visited
many of the most celebrated universities in those coun
tries. Mathematical studies engaged his interest most. Charles
XIL, with whom he had frequent interviews, appointed hira
assayer at the raineralogical coUege, where Swedenborg made
some important investigations, and pubUshed a number of
scientific productions. In 1719 he was raised to the nobility,
and visited the mines of Saxony on professional business.
Later he published valuable treatises, not only on mineralogy
but on philosophy and zoology. Up to 1741 we see hira only
in the Ught of a distinguished naturaUst, whose attention was
devoted to raines, raachinery, and other practical raatters.
But observation and inquiry into the world of sense were
merely the foundation for his speculations on the spirit world.
It was in 1743, during his sojourn in London, that, as he
stoutly affirmed, the Lord appeared to him, opened to him
the mysteries of a higher stage of being, and brought him into
comraunication wdth angels. In 1747 Swedenborg relin
quished his office, but continued, at the king's desire, to receive
his fuU salary. After this tirae he Uved exclusively to his
new calling, that of a spirit seer and an investigator into
heavenly mysteries. His horae was altemately in England
and Sweden, interspersed (in good faith, according to Sweden
borg) vsdth journeys to heaven and hell, during which tours he
had interviews with antediluvians, as well as with men of the
Old Testament and of the early Christian epoch. The theo
logical works which he wrote, he published at his own cost.
The sceptics ridiculed him, the orthodox laid their bann upon
hira, but the favour of the king protected him against them
both. Yet his book gained him some friends as well as ene
mies. With all his close relations to the spirit world, Sweden
borg was always a wellbred raan of the world, and knew how
to conduct himself to equal advantage araong gentlemen and
ladies, and with disembodied forms. With aU his pecuUarities
he was a man of humane dispositionj rigid morals, and unaf
fected piety. He lived in perfect health to an advanced old
age. He died in London in 1772.
To give a sketch of Swedenborg's doctrines would be diffi
cult, as there is an inner connection in what seems torn apart ;
and the separate threads which bind the whole are often en-

156 SWEDENBOEG, HEINEICH, &C.
tangled in a knot, while their loose ends are lost in a mystical
cloud. Beginning where he began, we find that the Scriptures
alone were by no means the whole source whence he drew
religious truth, least of all the Scriptures read according to the
letter. The angels, he asserted, i.e. the spirits of the departed,
were his instructors ; for Swedenborg accepted no other angels
than these. The teachings of celestial beings he did not hold
as antagonistic to those revealed in the Bible, but supplemen
tary to thera ; indeed the angels help rae, said he, to a right
understanding of the Bible. Our present Holy Writ, as
we have it, is only a coarse copy of what was written by
angels ; and, therefore, we need the help of those celestial
beings to guide us to a correct interpretation of the counsels
of God, and to help us to ascertain that inner sense of the
Bible, which ought to beara forth as the soul does through
the body, as the thought does through the eye. To every
expression in that book, as well as to every extemal
expression in the world of sense, there is something to be
expressed, an inner soraething, and to trace the correspon
dences between the two is the task of the true Scripture ex
positor. In this way naraes, numbers, and the like, which
otherwise would have no raeaning for us, have their true sig
nificance. In the raost ancient times this science of corres
pondences was thoroughly understood in the Orient ; the wise
men who came to adore the Saviour were versed therein ; but
the Jews had lost the key, and held only to the letter of Scrip
ture, and so could not interpret the trath. This was the reason
that they did not see that Jesus was the Messiah. Even in
the tirae of the primitive Christians this science of corres
pondences was not understood, nor, indeed, was there need of
it, because of thefr siraple faith. Not even to the reformers
was it revealed. But now, i.e. the time of Swedenborg, it is
understood once more.
One of the beautiful poetic fancies of Swedenborg is this,
that when innocent chUdren read the Scriptures the angels are
edified more than when older persons read. Swedenborg s
doctrine of the church harraonises with his views of the Bible.
The true church, the new Jerusalera, is only "to be looked for
when there is a thorough appreciation of Scripture, which can
only be attained at the second coraing of Christ. Much oi

SWEDENBOEG, HEINEICH, &C. 157
what the ehurch has received before is false ; araong other
things the doctrine of the Trinity. According to Sweden
borg, or rather according to the revelations raade by angels
to hira, there are not three persons, as the orthodox maintain,
which is but saying that there are three gods ; but the whole
Trinity is embraced in the single person of the God -man Jesus
Christ. And this idea he has in coraraon with Zinzendorf",
that there is no other God with which Christians, as such,
have to do, excepting God incarnate in Christ. According to
hira Chiist is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost at once. He hira
self is the triune God. No less decisively did Swedenborg
cast aside the coraraonly received doctrine of the satisfaction of
Christ. That men should be justified by the service of another,
by what was purely extemal to thera, seemed to hira contra
dictory to sound sense. In this point he approached the Soci
nians and the sceptical writers of his tirae rauch nearer than
did Zinzendorf Yet the death of Jesus had raore iraport in
his eyes than it had in theirs. Swedenborg saw a purifying
power in aU suffering and sorrow, lifting raan above hiraself ;
and hence, in the sufferings of Jesus Christ, he traced the ad
vance from the battle to the victory ; and in this advance he
discovered, as he supposed, the buUding of the huraan character
up to the divine. In his death Christ soleranised his own
glorification. He was perfected through suffering. He did
not take away once for all the sins of men ; but he takes them
away (from us, in the present time) by imparting a new divine
life. Salvation is, according to Swedenborg, an inner, spiritual
work, and is identical with the work of renewal of the heart
and sanctification. In the whole doctrine of repentance he
stood on entirely different ground from Zinzendorf, who was
firm in his advocacy of the appropriation of the merits of
Christ as the great fundamental truth of salvation. In
this raatter Swedenborg was widely apart frora raost Protes
tant theologians, and nearer to the Catholics, who hold that
sanctification and justification are one, and who deraand works
with faith.
Especially singular are Swedenborg's views of life after
death, clairaing, as he did, to have communications dfrect frora
the departed, and apparently convincing himself of the reality
of these communications. Every person transfers his Ufe here

158 SWEDENBOEG, HEINEICH, &C.
unchanged to the other world ; what he was and did here, he
is and does there ; what he wished and strove after here, he
wishes and strives after there. That is the foundation of his
views of the future life. He coraplained of it as a fundamental
enor that, after death, we expect a great change in our
nature ; and that the life after death is something entirely re
moved from life as we understand it, something ideal, abstract,
peculiar. He regards life there as only a high potentiahty, as
it were, of Ufe here. " Many leamed Christian men who shall
see theraselves in the future world invested with a body, clad
with clothing and living in houses, when they shall recall
what they used to think before death about the soul, about
spirits, about heaven and heU, will be filled with shame, and
confess that those who were simple and unlearned were
wiser in divine things than they." " That the spirit of man,
after its separation from the body shall have a human form
has been perfectly known to rae [says Swedenborg] for many
years ; for I have seen those spiritual bodies a thousand times,
and have heard them converse." " The spirits heartily pity us,
because there is so rauch ignorance about thera not only in the
world but in the church." To this ignorance Swedenborg
ascribed that abstract idea of the learned, that the spirit is
and wiU be iraraaterial, raere being, without corporeal sub
stance, and that the doctrine of the church does not recognise
a spiritual body tiU after the resurrection. According to him,
this union of soul and body is essential to life, and must be
continued in another world, because just as essential then as
now Heaven and hell are peopled with beings who once Hved
on this world, for Swedenborg acknowledged no other angels
than the souls of the good who once lived on this earth, and
no other devils than the souls of the bad who also once Uved
here. What is meant by the devil, when spoken of as a
person, is only the coUective being of damned souls. So, too,
he throws away the comraonly received view of the last
judgraent. According to hira, that judgraent is aheady past;
he hiraself had seen it, and it occimed in the year 1757, occu
pying nearly the whole of that year. We have from his pen
the foUowdng description : " All nations and peoples who were
subject to judgraent appeared in the following order ; in the
iniddle were those who were called Protestants, an-anged

SWEDENBOEG, HEINEICH, &;C. 159
according to countries — the Germans, where it was alraost
perfect darkness — the Swedes, where it was like evening — the
Danes, in the twilight — the Dutch, where it was quite light- — •
and the English in the broad glare of day. Around the Pro
testant group of nations stood the Papists, the greatest part in
twilight gloom, a fragraent in the broad Ught. Around these
were the heathen in vast nurabers, forraing the outmost circle.
Outside of aU was what seemed Uke a great sea. That the
nations were ananged in this order had its ground in the
varied degree of receptivity for divine trath. The evil minded
among the Mahomraedans were in swaraps and bogs, and the
like class araong the heathen were thrust into two great
abysses, whUe the pure-rainded among both were allowed to
join the Christians. In that way the prophecy was fulfiUed,
that they shall come frora the raoming and the evening, and
shaU sit down together in the kingdora of heaven. The Pa
pists, represented by the word Babylonians, had gone on until
the day of judgment with their masses and thefr worship of
images, had had their churches and cloisters, had sent monks
to convert the heathen, had their councils, &c. In conse
quence of their formal and outside sanctity they have a place
in the lowest ranks of heaven ; but, in consequence of their
inward impurity, they have a portion with the hosts of hell.
But after the judgment in 1757, those of the Romish Church
who lent their aid to suppress the trath were thrust down
into the abyss refened to above, whUe those of pure life
and of sincere desire for the prevalence of truth were ac
cepted, and sent into a certain locality, where they enjoy
Protestant instmction, and then are received into heaven.
As to the representations of heaven and hell, the subjoined
quotation wiU show what Swedenborg believed. "In the
spiritual world," said he, "is everything which is in the
natural world ; there are houses, and palaces, and gardens, and
in these trees of aU kinds ; there are fields, and meadows, and
cattle, great and sraall, exactly as upon the earth, with this
difference, that the latter have a spiritual origin. The people
who are inclined to what is good and true, live in palaces sur
rounded by beautiful gardens ; those who are incUned in an
opposite direction are shut up in hell, within prisons which
have no vrindows, or they Uve in deserts or in huts, sur-

160 SWEDENBOEG, HEINEICH, &C.
rounded by barren land, filled with snakes, di-agons, owls, and
whatever conesponds to their inner bad nature. Between
heaven and hell is a middle place, called the spirit world;
hither coraes every one directly after death, and there is the
sarae freedom of intercourse between people that there was
before on earth. Everything there, too, is in correspondence
with what we are accustomed to here. There are gardens,
forests, shade-trees, and briar copse.s, flowery and grassy fields,
animals of various kinds, wild and tame. I have often seen
[says Swedenborg] sheep and raras in a contest of strength ; 1
have seen rams with horns bent backwards and forwards too,
tenibly goad the sheep ; I have seen rams with two horns
butting the sheep with flerce impetuosity ; and, as I looked to
see nearer, I discovered others who were quarrelhng with each
other about faith, and that love that works by faith, which I
interpreted to raean that the rara signified faith separated from
love, and the sheep the love out of which faith springs. And
when I had seen such contests several tiraes, I felt assured
that those who are trying to live by faith separated from
active love are indeed the rams."
Swedenborg's writings were not universally known till
after his death. He founded no sect ; but after his decease
there were forraed in London and Stockholm the philanthropic
exegetical communities bearing his narae. These were joined
rather by the leamed and the affiuent than by people from
the masses : just the reverse of what had been the case with
EngUsh Methodism. It is very natural that a faith which
Concems itself far more with a future than a present world,
and which expects to find that world only this one glorified,
would not meet the feeUngs of those who feel themselves
burdened and cramped by the hard conditions of life.
Besides, such a faith would raainly find its advocates among
those who have leisure and taste for speculation. And
although the church-forraing spirit was not pre-eminent among
the foUowers of Swedenborg, it was not whoUy lost sight of
by them, and in 1787 they first organized themselves mto a
church, with a definite stateraent of poUty and doctrine.
The three countries where Swedenborg's views were most
acceptably received were Sweden, England, and North
Araerica. His followers early sent raissionaries to Africa,

SWEDENBOEG, HEINEICH, ETC. 161
with the expectation of finding their own church already
fuUy established there. The success of Swedenborg's doc- ,
trine of late years has been a reraarkable phenoraenon of our
tiraes. Perhaps the very mixture of what is fanciful and
what is rational, and the spiritual arrogance with which it
puts forth its pretensions to acquaintance with the land of
raysteries, raay have a special charra for an age which dis
plays such a raarked taste for whatever is piquant. That
great ideas, such as those relating to the connection between
the seen and the unseen world, Ue at the foundation of
Swedenborgianisra, and that its views antagonistic to those
coraraonly received by the Church were not wholly without
ground, we will gladly confess. This recently-begotten faith, ¦
this raixture of rationaUsra and mysticism, is a proof that the >
times, unsatisfied with all that has been offered to it as the
pure doctrine of the Church, sighs for soraething new and
fresh ; and that those who could not coincide with the views
of the raodern sceptical school, could just as little find satis
faction in the thoughtless iraitation of orthodox forras.
Somewhat similar was it with Stilling and Lavater. We '
rank these two men, who had much raore in coraraon with
our tiraes than Swedenboi'g, with him, not because they
accepted his system, but because they shared with him the
tendency to speculate on the mysteries of the unseen world,
and believed with him, in the close connection and correspon- 1
dence of this world with the next. But while in Sweden
borg there is nothing but this dreamy and insecure and fanci
ful speculation, and nothing of the practical, with Stilling
and Lavater a lawless mysticisra forras but a part of religion.
They stood with firra foot upon the earth, and displayed so
much activity araong their fellows, that their career would
be reraarkable even had they not displayed their raarked
mystical tendencies. EspeciaUy true is this of Lavater, whose
character in its practical phase, in regard to piety and raoral
worth, is weU worthy of study. Both raen (StiUing and
Lavater) are so well known as to the external course and
conditions of their Uves, that we need enter into no detail.
" StUling's Life " is in all hands : not only has it been
largely read in Gerraany, but, in its translated forra, in
England and Araerica. That autobiography raakes plain much

162 SWEDENBORG, HEINRICH, ETC.
that was pecuUar in him. When we trace the career of this
man, born in 1740, from the lowest classes of society,
advancing first to the position of a schoolraaster; from that to
the chair of a professor and privy councillor, and ascribincr
every step of tbis advancement to the special leading of God
in answer to prayer, we raust feel an interest in him. Still
ing was brought into intiraate connection with the pietists,
without having his whole energies absorbed by them, and
without being clairaed by thera. In his "Theobald, or the
Fanatic," he has treated of sorae of the wild vagaries of faith
in his day, characterizing thera so soberly and at the same
tirae so keenly, that no one, after reading that book, will
expect to find a fanatic in the author. That simple, child
Uke piety of his, which rested alraost solely on "an undis
turbed faith in God, in help coraing directly from Him," and
which found its confirraation in the experience of many yeai?,
was highly valued even by those whora we are accustomed
to think of as ths eneraies of all reUgious enthusiasm, such as.
Goethe for exaraple.
His beUef in God's power and wiUingness to answer prayer,
StiUing shared with a nuraber of pious conteraporaries. Still
ing is but the representative of a class not insignificant in
influence, erabracing even Bengel within it. The same behef
we find in Lavater, even during his childhood, and we read of
hira, that after raaking a blot in his writing-book, he prayed
to God to erase it. This was but typical of his universal
reUance on the power of prayer. It raay be thought that
such a belief -raight lead to superstition if applied to aU the
petty troubles of life, yet it raust be confessed that in an age
when philosophy was separating God raore and more widely
frora the world, reducing hira to a raere abstraction, and
waving hira away into the vast eraptiness of space, a belief ui
a God who can hear and answer prayer was the only bond
which united the truly pious and godly to that distant Being:
it was the shortest way to arrive at the coraforting convicrion
that God has not deserted His people, that He is near to all
who call upon Him. Had StiUing and Lavater held to no
other valuable truth than this specific theory of prayer, they
would have largely corapensated for the dominant unbelief of
their time. And, fortunately, they had on their side ,men
who, in respect to historical Christianity, had far less positive

SWEDENBOEG, HEINEICH, ETC. 163
beUef than they. It was that firm belief in what Zinzendorf
called a God-the-Father religion, that belief in a Providence
which controlled even the details of life, which was peculiarly
strong in the pious men of that day, and which supplied in
some measure the want of a more definite and strongly based
confidence in a historical Christianity. It was this belief
in God as a Father which brought Lavater into such intimate
relationship with Spalding and ZolUkofer. Many a childlike
soul could assent entirely to God's power of working in the
present, and his ability and willingness to hear prayer, and
yet stagger over the doctrines of the Trinity, original sin, and
the satisfaction of Chiist. That is a reraarkable phenomenon
of those tiraes. And it is in this that that age was so widely
different frotn ours, in which a belief in a personal and prayer-
hearing God stands on a weak footing, while there is no lack
of strict orthodoxy in other points.
But Lavater and Stilling were not content with that raere
God-the-Father religion. The former tells us, indeed, that
when a boy he had no conception of Christ : that the New
Testaraent affected hira far less than the Old. " Christ," he
says, "had as Christ neither attraction nor repulsion to me.
He was for me a wholly non-existent person, so far as draw
ing out any attachraent frora me. My heart then wanted no
Christ, it only wanted a prayer-hearing God." Thus he as a
boy stood on the sarae step with many pious men of his time.
But when he becarae a raan be looked at the matter differ
ently. As a raan he stUl stood on terras of the closest com
munion with God ; but it was only when he attained to raan
hood that he saw that Christ had procured hira that intiraate
approach to the Father. In a conversation which he once
held with ZoUikofer, on a journey, he expressed hiraself thus :
" Men need not only a God worthy of worship, but one who
can enter with thera into all the conditions of life. The
etemal, invisible, supreme, ever-present Being of all beings
can be adored without Christ, but He cannot be approached
in real supplication. In Christ the incomprehensible and in
finitely exalted God has brought hiraself within the circle of
the finite, and come within our caU. Christ is the face of
God in which aU the attributes of God, hitherto hidden from
view, were fully minored.

164 SWEDENBOEG, HEINEICH, ETC.
This reconciliation of divine and human elements in Christ
was to Stilling and Lavater, and particularly the latter, the
.source of a living and active faith. For them the chain of
mystery and rairacle which appears in the Bil^le history, and
has its beginning there, continues on to these later times, and
in this they differed from the raost of the orthodox who hmit
the period of rairacles to the tiraes of the apostles. In theh
sight the spiritual world is not far removed from view, it is
only thinly covered, and it raerely needs faith to have tbe
veil reraoved. They were, therefore, drawn into fields of
speculation as Swedenborg was, and it must be confessed that
they did not fail to carry their notions to some degree of
extravagance. Each had his own pet therae : with Stilhng it
was the world of spirits, with Lavater, it was wonders in the
physical world rather. Both busied themselves with the
Apocalypse, and Lavater, in his "Views into an Eternal
Future," propounded a nuraber of conjectures similar to the
views of Swedenborg, but with this iraportant difference, that
Lavater speaks of what he conjectures, while Swedenborg
speaks of what he clairas to have seen.
And yet, strange and crude as were Lavater's material
ideas of eraployraent, houses, and the cultivation of art in the
spirit world, unworthy of so great a raan, and unsanctioned by
Scripture, yet it would be tinjust to hira to refuse to make the
concession, that such views as his and Swedenborg's had a very
different reception at that tirae frora what they would have now.
There was prevalent a far raore personal and distinct idea of
future life then than now. They were conservative men for then:
time, and though in many things they were fanciful, yet they
were not proscribed for their definite conceptions of man's future
life. And notwithstanding StUling's raysticism, yet he was
reraarkable for his practical piety, and his singularly beneficent
life, his unwearied charities and labours of love in behalf of
the poor and afflicted ; whUe Lavater, vdth all his fanciful
speculations on the houses, and gardens, and pursuits of tbe
heavenly world, always stood with his feet ffrnily planted on
this earth, and was to the last a faithful pastor and an eamest
]>reacher. While StUling seemed to think raostly of the
heavenly horae, and even went so far as to write in the

SWEDENBORG, HEINEICH, ETC. 165
family register of a friend, " Blessed are they who are home
sick, for they shall corae at last to the Father's house." ;
Lavater rejoiced continually in this life, and worked faithfully
and truly to bless the earth. Lavater was in every point of
view far more many-sided than Stilling, and his Christian
faith far more jojrful and less morbid. " Can it be repeated
or thought upon enough," says Lavater in his "Manual for the
Sick," that joy, nothing but joy, is the purpose of the great
Leader of men, joy, nothing but joy, the only end of all that
we suffer. Jesus and joy bringer are words of the same signi
ficance. Whoever considers Jesus as anything but a joy-
bringer, and the gospel as anything but tidings of joy, pain
as anything but the source of joy, knows neither God, Christ,
nor the Gospel."
This raarked eraphasis of joy was closely connected in
Lavater with the raost definite idea of Christ. This idea was
the richest fountain of all his experiences. It governed his
entire life. The divinity of Christ, his alraighty power on
earth and in heaven, was the theme dn which he raost loved
to dwell. He was able to say with Zinzendorf I have only
one passion, and it is He, only He. Like the founder of the
Moravian Brotherhood, he wanted to be on terras of personal
communion with Christ, to be bound to him by a strict and
Uteral tie. He never seeks to draw Christ dowti to himself
as Zinzendorf had done, but would rather be lifted up to
Christ. Such a conception of the Saviour, which did not in
extreme idealizing tear him from historic grounds, and yet
just as Uttle remained content with the mere historic Christ,
which let Jesus become raan anew, frora day to day as it
were, which did not lift hira above the stars, but let hira live
in the breasts of men, wliich did not make him once for all
the curer of the bUnd and the healer of the sick, but which
raised him up as the Light of the world, was like a new gos
pel to men. What we are accustomed to regard as the very
essenxie of Christianity, as something peculiar, as its distin
guishing mark from all other reUgions, the blending of the
divine and the human through Christ, appeared to the men
of that time as fooUsh fanaticism, and many spoke it plainly
out, that " the good man would suffer far less if he were not so
believing, if he did not hang so to his Christ." While foolish

166 JOHN GODFREY HERDER.
and superficial sceptics ridiculed the spirituaUty of Lavater (I
need only refer to Nicolai, who abused him shamefully), othere,
like Goethe, spoke approvingly of it as a raost desirable gift,
even if they did not share in it. " It lifts the soul up,"
writes Goethe to Lavater, " and gives the most cheerful
thoughts to see the zest with which you raise the clear
crystal to your lips and quaff the divine drink in such liberal
draughts, even letting it pour profusely over the sides of the
goblet.'' Goethe, of course, did not sympathize with Lavater
in his views any farther than to look with appreciation upon
the spirit and work of the man. Yet it is indeed wonderful
to see the hold which both StiUing and Lavater had upon
Goethe as friends, sceptic though he was.

XIV.
JOHN GODFREY HERDER. ,
HERDER TILL HIS APPOINTMENT IN BUCKEBURG. — GOETHE ON
HERDER.  HEEDEB IN HIS OFFICIAL LABOURS IN BUCKE
BURG.  THE COUNTESS MARIA.  HERDER's LITEKAKY LA
BOURS.  CALL TO WEIMAR.  HIS LITERARY CLMAX. —
JOURXET TO ITALY.  HIS DEATH CHAEACTEEISTIC OF HER
DER.  HIS GREAT MENTAL POWERS AND VIVACITY. — HU-
JIANITY.  ITS RELATION TO CHRISTIANITY AND PROTEST
ANTISM.  HERDER AS THEOLOGIAN.  HUMAN MODE OF
VIEWING THE DIVINE.  HERDER'S POETIC VIEW OF THE
WORLD.  SKETCH OF A JOURNEY.  HERDER'S CHRIS
TIANITY.  HIS THEOLOGICAL CONVICTIONS AND THEO
LOGICAL CHARACTEE.  HIS VIEWS ON THEOLOGY AND THE
MIXISTEY.  HEEDEE AS PEEACHEE.  HIS TALENT FOR RE
LIGIOUS POETEY.  HERDEE'S POSITION IN REFERENCE TO
PROTESTANTISM.  HIS CONSERVATIVE TENDENCY. — STRICT
VIEWS OF CHURCH DISCIPLINE AND FREEDOM OF THE
PRESS.  HIS POSITION IN REFERENCE TO PHILOSOPHY.
John Godfrey Heedee was bom at Mohrangen, East

JOHN GODFREY HERDER. 167
Prussia, August 25th, 1744. His father, a poor chorister
and teacher of a female school, is represented as a raan strict
and conscientious in perforraing his duties, very regular and
methodical as well as good-natured and taciturn. Herder,
however, appears to have inherited raore of his mother's than
of his father's nature. There was something very tender
and sympathetic about his raother which, together with her
quickness of coraprehension and inclination to ceaseless
activity, was transraitted to the son. She was a zealous
Christian, and had, as her pastor Trescho testifies, a good
knowledge, without, however, making a display of it, and was
one of the raost attentive and most easily affected hearers in
the church. In this household the old spirit of family-wor
ship and pious habits still prevailed. The day, which was
spent in industry, was finished by singing a h3rmn. A deep
and lasting irapression was made on Herder's mind by these
pious evening hyrans. He frequently thought of thera with
emotion and melancholy longing, and in later years the
remembrance of them still irapelled him to play on the clavi
chord, and to sing the old chorals in the stillness of the
night. A considerable part of the small family-library was
composed of books like Amdt's " True Christianity," and it is
said the leaf of this book still exists on which the father
wrote the names and birth-days of his chUdren, and a wish
for their weffare added to each.
Herder's first education at school was very strict ; much
was learned, though not according to the best and easiest
method. A boy like Godfrey Herder would, however, soon
have surpassed the other pupils whatever method might have
heen used. His peculiar talents soon manifested themselves.
Even in his early youth his greatest enjoyraent consisted in
music and poetry. He was fond of ancient history and
ancient languages, and his talent for poetry developed in a
wonderful manner. As his poetical taste was, next to the
classics, awakened chiefly by the Bible and sacred hymns, it
is quite natural that his flrst attempts at poetry were forraed
according to these sacred raodels. His reserve and bashful
ness made it difficult for those who directed him in his studies
to see clearly what his future career would be ; and it hap
pened that Herder, as well as sorae other eminent theologians

168 JOHN GODFREY HERDER.
(even Luther and Calvin), chose sorae other pursuit of life
before he was led to the study of theology. After he had
sighed away a good part of his youth with the pious, but
rather raelancholy and peevish theologian, Trescho, and had
consuraed raany hours of the night in study, he fell into the
hands of a regimental surgeon, who took him from his kind
jjarents, whom he never saw again, to Konigsberg, in order
to teach him the science of surgery. But the fact, that at
the first operation witnessed by the tender youth he swooned,
was decisive. Herder was as Uttle fit for a surgeon as a
soldier, which he had dreaded to become even from his early
boyhood. He, therefore, tumed to the quiet study of theo
logy and philosophy, of history, of languages, and polite lite
rature. But difficulties increased with this change of studies,
for the surgeon withdrew his assistance. Konigsberg, whose
gra.nd architecture had at first astonished him, now became,
with all its splendour, a school of severe trial, his poverty,
connected with modesty and timidity, only formed .so much
the greater contrast to the grand irapression he received
from extemal objects. Dependent chiefly on himself, and
assisted by only a few noble friends, the genius, pressed
and restrained on all sides, was now to break his own way.
The struggle, however, soon led to victory, and the path
which had at first led through rough and gloomy places, soon
conducted hira cheerfully to the teraple of fame.
Kant and Hamann, raen of very different minds, were
particularly prorainent, in their respective spheres, among
the raen who at that tirae adomed the University of Konigs
berg. LiUenthal, the defender of the good cause of revelar
tion, taught theology. Herder always spoke with the greatest
respect of this worthy theologian, as weU as of Kant, though,
as we shall see further on, he could not agree with his phi
losophy. Being appointed teacher in the gymnasium (Frede
rick's CoUege) of Konigsberg, his circumstances gradually
improved. Herder was an earnest teacher, who insist«d
on diligence and attention in his classes, but was just as
strict with himself; and with such a course of conduct this
position resulted in inward as well as outward advantages.
" I am indebted to teaching," he says, " for the development
and clear understanding of many ideas, whoever wishes to

JOHN GODFREY HERDER. 169
acquire these on any subject, let him teach that subject."
When his relations had afterwards changed and taken him
from the profession of teaching, he often wished that he
could teach several years in a university, in order to get rid
of his thoughts and ideas, and to give them expression in a
hving manner. This ardent desire to coraraunicate is very
important to us in Herder. His was an electric nature,
easily receiving and easily eraitting sparks. Thus the fiery
soul of the tiraid youth gradually raatured to the clearness
and firmness of raanhood. His natural bashfulness decreased,
and he " to whora formerly a raan with a. collar seemed
fearful, could now fearlessly look upon badges of honour and
diadems."^ Of his friends in Konigsberg, J. G. Hamann was one of the
most intimate. " He found in him," Herder's wife says, "what
he sought and needed, a sympathizing, affectionate and warra
heart for all that is great and good, and a spiritual piety, the
strictest moral principles and a genius high and consecrated
both in mind and heart. He bore Hamann in his heart, and
the deepest sympathy united them for time and eternity."
Haraann was, as Herder says, "a good handful of years" the
older. He exerted a great infiuence on Herder's life, whilst
Herder in return raade hira known to the literary world as
the Magician of the North.
¦Owing to his reraoval to the school of Riga in the auturan
of 1764, Herder's relation to his friends soon changed. He
was twenty years old when he became assistant teacher. Till
this tirae he had worn his own uncurled hair ; but now, ac
cording to a strict observance of the school custom of the
day, a wig was to give the youth an older and a clerical ap
pearance. But more than by the wig, was this done by the
character of the raan, which was able, not only to give him the
proper appearance, but also to gain the confidence and affec-
, .tion of the scholars. "His method of teaching," one of his
former pupils says, " was so exceUent, and his intercourse with
the pupils was so friendly, that they recited no lessons with
greater pleasure than those assigned by him."
In Riga, Herder found quite a nuraber of old and new
friends, and his free, aspiring raind readily adapted itself to
' Thug his teacher, Trescho, who had visited him in Konigsberg, wrote in 1764.

170 JOHN GODFREY HERDER.
the stUl cherished relics of old Hanseatic custoras and insti
tutions. His views were enlarged, and his ideas of political
freedora and prosperity, on which he had long been reflecting,
now received forra and distinctness, and became to him truth
and reality. His external circumstances also improved from
day to day. The bookseUer Hartknoch, Herder's student-
friend while at Konigsberg, pubUshed his works, which at this
time already excited attention, among which the Fragments
on Gerraan literature and Critical Walder awakened by their
bold spirit raany new friends from the literary world on the
one hand, and on the other raany who envied and opposed
him. In order to avoid the unpleasantness which is almost
necessarUy connected with literary disputes. Herder deter
rained to travel to sorae foreign country, and in this he was
encouraged by his friends. He resigned his position, and first
went by way of Nantes to Paris, at that time the seat of the
'¦ encyclopedical" phUosophy, frora which the deistical ten
dency proceeded and gradually spread over the whole of Ger
raany. He became acquainted with several leaders of this
philosophy, and spoke of some of thera with great respect,
though he did not like their system ; for he generaUy looked
for the raan, and then knew how to raake a distinction be
tween hira and his views and opinions. Though his character
was thoroughl}'- Gerraan, he was still able to appreciate the
good qualities of other nations, without overestimating or
recoraraending thera for servile and spiritless imitations ; and
it was from this standpoint that, araong other things, he judged
of French poetry. After having also visited Holland and the
Netherlands, he retumed to Gerraany by way of Hamburg,
and in this journey raade the acquaintance of Lessing, Claudius,
Bode, Reimarus, and pastor Goetze. Of these, so very differ
ent men, Claudius, " the Wandsbecker Messenger," obtained
the privileges of that intimate friendship which Hamann
already enjoyed, and which, with all the external changes,,
continually struck deeper roots within.
In accordance with a request which had been made to him
in Paris to travel with the Prince of Holstein-Oldenburg,
Herder proceeded to the court of Eutin where he was well
received aud preached several tiraes in the Castle-Church.
The journey with the Prince led hira through Darmstadt.

JOHN GODFREY HERDER. 17]
Here he forraed the acquaintance with the lady who after
wards becarae his wife, a Miss von Flachsland. "He preach
ed," his wife relates, " in the Castle-Church. I heard the
voice of an angel and words which raoved the soul, such as
I had never before listened to. I have no words to express
this unprecedented and unparaUeled irapression. He stood be
fore rae like a heavenly being in a huraan forra. I saw hira
in the aftemoon, and expressed my gratitude with a faltering
voice ; frora that tirae our souls were and are one ; our raeet
ing was God's work." He raade the acquaintance of Goethe
and Jung StiUing in Strasburg, where he spent sorae tirae to
have an operation perforraed on his eyes, as he was suffering
from fistula lachryraalis. Each of these men gives an ac
count of the impression Herder made on him. Goethe wit
nessed the resolution and patience, manifested by Herder
during the painful and, unfortunately useless, operation. A
disagreeable part of Herder's nature appeai-ed very repul
sive to Goethe, and even at this time occasioned a slight feel
ing of uneasiness between thera. Jung Stilling, on the other
hand, gained Herder's entire affection and soon liked hira
better than he did Goethe. " Never," says Stilling, " have I
admired any one more than this raan." He acknowledges,
that he redeived from him an impulse to perpetual activity.
'' Herder," he says, " has but one thought, and this is a whole
worid." In this confession of Jung StiUing, that he received from
Herder "an impulse to perpetual activity," we have given
not only the confession of a single individual, but of many,
even of whole generations. How many to whora life has
appeared in its great importance, are there still who with
StiUing received their first irapulse to perpetual activity from
Herder ! And has not the age itself received fi-om him this
impulse, this inci tation and activity so multifarious, and in
extent unlimited ? And yet when Stilling made this remark,
Herder had scarcely done anything in public life. He was
still a youth, full of impelling ideas and plans. " What a
motion there must have been in such a mind," says Goethe,
" what a fermenting in such a nature, can neither be con
ceived nor expressed. Great, however, raust have been the
hidden striving, as will be readily acknowledged, when we

172 JOHN GODFREY HERDER.
consider how many years he afterwards laboured and how
much he accomplished." This testimony is so rauch the more
reliable, because the disagreeable part of Herder's character
appears to have affected Goethe raore than the attractive.
Goethe continues to say, that Herder had " in his youth some
thing tender in his raanner, which was very becoming and
agreeable, without, however, being very smart. He had a round
face, a considerable forehead, a nose a Uttle flat and a pouting
mouth which was, however, peculiarly agreeable and lovely.
Under black eye-brows a pair of jet black eyes, which never
failed to produce an effect, though the one was generally red
and inflaraed." So far Goethe.
We now approach the raanhood of Herder, and will follow
hira in his public official capacity in the Church and schooL
It is often painful for great minds, who feel that they are
adapted to accomplish so much, to be taken suddenly from
the free course oi genius, developing without all restraint, and
to be conflned to the narrow limits of a circumscribed sphere,
and yet this faithfulness to one's calling, and this activity of
a great man, in apparently sraall affairs, is the test of real
greatness of raind.
Herder received an honourable call to Biickeberg, the small
residence of the Count of Schauraburg-Lippe, as counsellor
of the consistory and superintendent, which call he willingly
accepted, since his relation to the Prince of Holstein and his
train began to be burdensorae. He entered on the duties of
his new position in May 1771. The Count, a man of a scien
tific education, of raodern enlightenraent, and not without
noble traits, hoped to find in Herder as clever a fiiend and
good corapanion as he had found in Thoraas Abbt, author of
a work on " Merit." The Count manifested his low views of
the ministerial office in expecting that Herder would devote
hiraself chiefly to hira and regard the affairs of the Church as
secondary. Herder, who had a different notion of the minis
terial office than that of a sinecure, was unwilling to do this.
He, who afterwards in the Provincial papers contended so
strongly, that " a tutor's or carver's place at the lower
end of His Excellence's table'' should not be regarded as the
surest road to clerical offices, would not degrade himself
to become a mere clever table companion and literary carver.

JOHN GODFREY HERDER. 173
This occasioned much discord between hira and the count.
But the Countess becarae the raore intimately attached to her
"teacher," as she was accustomed to call him with great re
spect. This exceUent woraan, Maria, born countess of Lippe
and Sternberg, who seeraed to Herder " like an angel frora
heaven," lost her mother on the day of her birth, and received
her flrst education in the house of her father with her twin
brother whom she called her Jonathan. She was afterwards
committed to the charge of an elder sister in Silesia, and carae
under Moravian influence. It was periiaps owing to this fact
that a certain anxious and painful feeling was connected with
her deep piety, frora which feeling Herder's pure and frank
mind gradually relieved her, not by unseasonable enlighten
ment, but by kindly studying her feelings, by friendly assist
ance, by progressive instruction, and by bringing to bear the
advantages of his scientific education and superior intellectual
powers. The correspondence of this countess with Herder is very in
structive in a psychological point of view. As the raists which
cover a beautiful landscape are scattered by the sun, so before
the penetrating rays of Herder's clearness we see the doubts
vanish, which had at first enveloped the tender spirit in
gloom, and we behold the iraage of her soul, the iraage of a
tender ferainine nature, becoraing more and more friendly,
more clear, raore confident, and raore secure. She unfolds
herself to her teacher as a flower to the light of the sun, and
in doing so gains raore inner worth in our eyes. Indeed, I
might say that the reforraatory caUing of Herder, the caUing
to iUuminate without destroying, to pour Ught into the soul
without disquieting and confusing it, but rather making it
firmer, raanifested itself in this relation to the countess Maria
in such a way, as it ought properly to have done, wherever
his spirit came. But for this the relations were, of course, not
always as favourable as in this case. Many prejudices opposed
his activity from without, and much intemal uneasiness pre
vented hira frora being as free in his actions as he desired,
which occasioned him much sorrow. "A pastor without a
congregation ! a patron of schools without schools, counsellor
of the consistory without a consistory !" These were intoler
able thoughts for Herder, during the first years he spent in

174 JOHN GODFREY HEEDEE
Biickeburg. To Miss von Flachsland he writes : " All my
favourite notions of the ministerial office are in part destroyed
here, are at least always destroyed when I think of this place
and ray sphere of activity in it ! "
Herder also preached to the congregation, but at first his
discourses were too philosophical for the raajority of his hearers.
Gradually he, however, brought his expressions within the
coraprehension of all, for which he was universaUy approved.
It thus happened, that even the farmers of the parish listened
to bim with the greatest attention. And Herder, indeed,
spared no exertions to make hiraself generally understood and
to avoid aU difficult expressions in his serraons. " My ser
mons," he writes to Miss von Flachsland, " have as little of
the clerical in them as ray person ; they are the experience of
a full heart, without any forced or confused raatter, the use of
which I ara spared here." Especially the serraons on the Life
of Jesus, preached in Biickeburg, made a great impression on
his congregation. They are like a field full of the sown grain
which awaits the fractifjring influences of heaven. His office
stiU gave hira sufficient leisure for writing books. The freshest,
the raost stirring and most ardent effusions of the fancy and
the heart came fi-ora his pen while in this place. Such, for
instance, are the " Oldest Records of the Human Race" which
as it were fiowed frora a feeling, a gush and a breath, in the
raorning hours of the longest suraraer days. "They were un
paraUeled, blessed, raeraorable days!" says his wife, who
shared these inteUectual joys with hira. Such, too, are the
Provincial Letters and the Philosophy of the History of
Huraanity, being the preparation for the later ideas on the
same subject.
An attempt (in which the distinguished philologian Heyne
was particularly active) to bring Herder to Goettingen as
fourth professor of theology and university preacher, failed
after various negotiations; for Herder, in order to end these
negotiations, which began to be annoying to hira, immediately
answered the question of Goethe, Whether he would accept
the appointraent of general-superintendent in Weimar, if
offered hira ? in the affirraative. There were at first difficul
ties in the way of this appointraent. Herder's orthodoxy
was questioned, his learning was undervalued, and the report

JOHN GODFREY HEEDEE. 175
was even spread that he could not preach. An estiraable
member of the town-council of Weiraar even requested a trial
sennon, with which request Herder, for evident reasons, did
not comply.^ After raany negotiations he entered on the
duties of his new office, having first, however, preached the
funeral serraon of the deceased Countess in Biickeburg, and
thus in a very significant manner ending and, as it were, seal
ing his labours in that place.
By means of his removal to Weiraar, Herder was placed in
the most intimate relation with the men from whom the new
inteUectual Ufe of Gerraany chiefly proceeded, with Wieland,
SchUler, Goethe, Jean Paul, Knebel, and others. Whilst be
fore this Herder had paid considerable attention to Uterature
besides his theological labours, he was now in danger of being
drawn entirely frora theology to literature. His coraprehen
sive raind was, however, able to accorapUsh much, and the
author of the " Cid" and various sesthetic and philosophical
works, and the zealous and judicious corapiler of national
songs of different nations, found sufficient tirae and strength
to fructify theological science with his new and animating
ideas, besides the labours connected with his office which he
did not neglect, and besides his manifold other labours in the
Church and school.^
' So his biography. The matter, however, appears to be different from the
communications in reference to Herder's call to Weimar, viz. : that a trial ser
mon was indeed required according to the old custom of the consistory, but
Herder was excused from preaching any, by a rescript of the Duke.
' It may be seen from Herder's first sermon in Weimar, how earnest and
anxious he was in the performances of his ministerial duties. "TMethinks," he
says, " the spirit of Luther hovers around me aud exclaims : ' Look upon that
which I have attained by my exertions ; see how difficult it was for me and
those whose bones rest here (in the Castle Church) to place the light of the
gospel, which was buried in ashes, on the candlestick ! Here thou enterest a
sphere where everything reminds you what doctrine to teach, whose word you
are to proclaim, to what an extent and in what an age ! You are called to be a
shepherd of souls at a time when it is frequently doubted whether there ought
to be such a thing as religion, whether it ought to he regarded and cherished,
and when, at least, the stream of thought flows against it and threatens to sweep
over it with its furious waves ; it is said that it ought not to be thought of, that
we can least of all things take care of ourselves by being religious, and that it is
the duty of each one to take care of himself, that, therefore, the ministerial ofiBce
is useless, a remnant of old customs which only continues because of the preju
dices in its favour, and, to say the least, is so difficult and obsolete that its duties
cannot be fully performed in our day. And, beholdl such an office thou enterest
upon here ! 'Their souls shall be required at thy hand ! Whatever is bom of

176 JOHN GODFEEY HEEDEE.
His work on "The Spirit of Hebrew Poetry," and his
" Letters on the Study of Theology" (which gave valuable
instruction and proper direction to so raany young men)
exerted a great influence on the views of the age, and scat
tered seed to be developed in the distant future. They were
not only a blessing to Gerraany, but also to Switzerland. As
Lavater had at one tirae raade a pilgriraage to Spalding, so m
17yO J. G. MiiUer, brother of the historian, traveUed on foot
frora Gottingen to Weiraar for no other purpose than that of
seeing Herder and asking advice of hira about his studies.
Herder received hira very cordially, and soon the conver
sation turned on the arrangement naf theological studies.
A cheerful sraile spread over Herder's countenance ; he arose
and brought frora his book-case a volurae, which he handed
the young raan. It was the first part of the " Letters on the
Study of Theology," which he had received from the pub
lisher but an hour before ; and what must have been Herder's
joy to find in the very next hour a youth, for whom the book
had, as it were, been written, and who, as he himself assures
us, received it from Herder's band with a desire to be m-
structed, and with sincere gratitude. From this hour the
friendship between the Weimar and the excellent Schafhauser
theologians was formed for ever.
We wdll not now follow Herder in his Uterary activity in
connection with the distinguished men of Weimar. We ex
pect, however, to resume the subject in another place. A
joumey to Italy, which country Herder had in his early youth
longed to visit, reinvigorated his body and recreated his mind.
His taste for art and antiquity was exercised, and rendered
still raore acute, and nature, and the custoras and manners of
God through thy instrumentality shall be thine, and shall prepare eternal habi
tations for thee ; whatever is neglected by thee, and falls away or goes astray,
shall grieve thy soul for ever.' Methinks those words of Luther — or, why do I
not rather mention the Lord of lords, the King of kings, the Holy one and Pro
tector of all human souls, Jesus Christ, to whom Luther pointed, whose doctrines
he preached, why do I not mention Hira, as he stands here, where more than
two or three are gathered in his name and call on Him, as he stands here, in our
midst, pointing to His word and His congregation saying: 'I have bouglit
and gained them with roy blood. Take care of these, and all over whom
thou hast been placed as shepherd and guardian, tnat none of those may lie
lost whom I commit to thee, who are like stars in my hand, are written in my
heart and on my breast.' "

JOHN GODFEEY HEEDEE. 177
the country fouud in hira a keen observer. Whilst in Rome,
he received another caU to Gottingen ; he was very much in
clined to accept it ; his own spirit seeraed to advise hira to
go, bnt the reigning duchess, AraeUa, succeeded in keeping
him in Weiraar for life. The latter part of his stay in Weimar^
was unfortunately disturbed by much unpleasant experience,
and also by iU health, and it really makes a sad irapression
upon us when we hear, that on account of this as weU as on
account of the frustration of earlier plans, he exclairaed with
grief : " 0 ray disappointed life !" The distinctions conferred
on him, the elevation to the vice-presidency, and afterwards
to the presidency of the consistory (1801), were only a smaU
corapensation for what he in vain deraanded of hiraself, and
besides involved hira in raany new difficulties, frora which he
found the best relief in the faraily circle. The soreness of his
eye increased continually. The treatraent of the disease both
in Aix-la-Chapelle and Egra did not reaUse his hopes. The
three weeks spent in Dresden were the last bright days of his
life. He returned to Weiraar, Septeraber 1803, and on the
last day of the raonth held an exaraination on angels with an
unusual elevation of spirits ; he hiraself was soon to be trans
ported to the invisible world. " It appeared," says John von
Miiller, in the letter written to his brother on the death o
Herder, " to bear the impress of another world, and to be
about beings to whom he felt himself related." In his last
years he longed for nothing raore earnestly than for sorae
great high thought on which he might live. Klopstock's
"Odes," Young's "Night Thoughts," and MiUler's "ReUcs"
were, next to the Bible, especially the Prophets, the last food
of his soul. He died Deceraber 18, 1,803, shortly after
he, whom inner nobility of soul had always elevated above
what is low and ordinary, had been raised to the nobiUty
' There was no lack of collisions between hira and the other great minds
which adorned the court of Weimar. It is really humiliating to see what
a little, often malicious, spirit of backbiting could enter such a circle, which
fact must have embittered his life as much, as he on the other hand may have
been the occasion of annoying others with ill humour. Only compare the
mahcious representation of Herder's matrimonial life in the "Letters of Schiller
and Koerner," vol. i., p. 166. The respect for genius in general decreases,
when we see that with all cultivation the rudeness of the natural man, which
can only be removed by Christianity, remains in full force.
M

178 JOHN GODFEEY HERDER.
by the Elector of Bavaria. So rauch in reference to his ex
ternal Ufe.
In turning to the characteristics of his inner life, I v\ill
quote a few sentences frora Jean Paul in reference to Herder :
" The noble spirit (of this raan) was not appreciated by dif
ferent tiraes and parties, though not entirely without a reason ;
for he was so unfortunate as not to be a star of the first or
any other magnitude, but an aggregate of stars, from which
each man formed a constellation, according to his own pleasure.
Men of many various powers are seldora appreciated, those of
one particular talent nearly always." This was the case with
Herder. Those who only estiraate the greatness of a man
according to his specific perforraances in a particular depart
ment, who only ask, who was the greatest poet ? who the
greatest phUosopher ? who tbe greatest theologian ? will not
chime in with the praise of Herder. They will prefer Schiller
and Goethe as poets, will place Kant, Fichte, and ScheUing
infinitely higher as philosophers ; and as far as theology is
concerned, they will ask, whether Herder reaUy accomplished
anything extraordinary in the department of exegesis, of
church history, of dogmatics, anything which equals what
Mosheira, MichaeUs, Seraler, Ernesti, Doderlein before him,
what Griesbach, Eichhorn, Spittler, Plank, his contempor
aries, as the most distinguished in their respective spheres,
performed ? We answer : greatness in a particular depart
ment, however necessary it may be to science in general,
and however beneficial to learning, is still not the only great
ness worthy of adrairation. It is, indeed, most easily measured,
and therefore (as Jean Paul intiraates) generaUy receives its
raerited adrairation, but where life is to be influenced, where
new inteUectual and moral conditions are to be produced,
where new points of view, not within the fixed Umits of an
art or a science, but within the whole sphere of life are to be
disclosed, there it is not so rauch the men in a particular
departraent of learning, who break out a new course, as those
universal minds, to which Herder belonged on one side, and
Goethe on the other. ^ Goethe was certainly still more univer
sal than Herder, but he lacked one thing, which is the most
• An ingenious comparison between Goethe and Herder may be found in
Wm. Humboldt's " Letters to a Female Friend," vol. i., p. 232. Among other

JOHN GODFEEY HERDER. 179
iniportant to us, that deep reUgiousness, at least the definite
relation to Christianity. But in this we find Herder's strength. '
WhUst, therefore, Goethe's influence on the development of a
consciousness of the world, which we do not esteem Ughtly,
was greater than that of Herder, the latter has led the con
sciousness of God, which is inflnitely higher than that of the
world, back to its lowest depths, and has not raingled it with
that of the world, but has in various ways brought about a
mediation between the two. Let Herder, then, be inferior to
Schiller and Goethe as a poet, stiU, we have not only the
poet in hira, but also the theologian, the public, popular
speaker and the preacher ; and this union of the religious-
theological genius with the poetical, of the author with the
minister of the church, raakes Herder what he is, and assigns
him a place which no other raind can fill. Therefore we
regard such an appearance as Herder peculiar in kind, one in
which an old period ends and a new one begins ; for even if
theologians of that time raight be mentioned who surpassed
Herder in leaming, in extent and profundity of knowledge,
whose investigations in some one department have led to
more lasting results than many of the bold views and ideas
of Herder's mind, still none of thera has exerted so great an
influence on Ufe. They have been of raore beneflt to the
school, he of raore to the people, especiaUy the raore educated
part. But Herder has also influenced the school and theo
logy by giving thera new life and new tendencies. Or (I ask
those who are capable of judging in this raatter) of what
advantage to the study of the Bible was that lifeless learning
of Michaelis, which lacked all poetry, and therefore aU deep
truth, when corapared with the irapulse which Herder gave
to the investigation and interpretation of the Old Testament !
In philosophy, Kant, Fichte, and ScheUing have, of course,
taken the lead, so that their names, like mile-stones, mark
the stadia in the history of modern philosophy, of which
Hegel may be said to forra the terrainus. But from thera the
things he says (quite in accordance with our views) : " Herder was certainly
inferior to Schiller and Goethe in compass of mind and poetical talent ; but in
him there was a blending of soul and fancy, by means of which he accomplished
what they could never have done." Is it not this blending of soul and fancy
which constitutes the religious genius ?

180 JOHN GODFREY HERDER.
school gained the chief advantage. Frora thera, too, origi
nated that forced, unusual language of the school which
Herder opposed so violently, since he valued the self-depend
ence of the raind raore than the prevalence of coined and
imitative forras. And, indeed, the tirae has come when an
other Herder ought to appear to purify the teraple of science
from the trash of the new scholastlcisra. In the history of
archseology sorae raay have brought to light more profound
knowledge than Herder. But who like Herder has reaUy
awakened so many and such gi-eat ideas, and scattered intel
lectual sparks where forraerly there had been mostly only
dead raatter cemented with dead matter, where only num
bers and names had been strung together, and only registers
and coraraentaries to registers had been raade !
We raust not confound Herder's variety of knowledge with
a superficial polyraathy and a meddling disposition, which
know a Uttle of everytliing, but nothing thoroughly, and trip
lightly over aU the departments of leaming. No one was
more opposed to a mere smattering of knowledge. Whatever
Herder studied he studied completely and thoroughly, and
penetrated to the roots, and was never satisfied with gather
ing flowers for the sake of adorning vanity. Evei-ywhere
the points of his mind touched the heavens, whUst the weight
of the raind sank it to the depths, everyv^here his genius
appears, and never, never, when it knocks, is the sound hollow ;
and when he spreads his pinions he never sinks to mediocrity.
One raay raiss in his writings the close deduction, the careful
corapletion, the mature investigation and connection of
thought ; one may take offence at his harshness, at apparent
contradictions, at groundless, doubtful assertions, especially
when he presents them with that confldence which denies the
right to all contradiction ; but never by the side of the stub
born vvill the shallow head appear, which says a thing only
because others have said it, and only wants to reap where it
has not strewn. Nor is his the chaotic variety of the poly-
mathist that has accuraulated in hira as an undigested mass,
which raight more probably be regarded as the case with his
friend Hamann ; we rather see that aU that Herder has
gathered is iraraediately changed into sap and blood, is all
united harmoniously, and is then again properly distributed and

JOHN GODFREY HERDER. 181
arranged, and becoraes, as it were. Herder. This his contem
porary and opponent also observed, for he reraarks in his
review of the " Ideas for a History of Huraanity," rather
blaraing than praising. " It seeras as if his genius does not
only gather the ideas frora the wide field of science and art
raerely for the sake of adding thera to others, but it appears
as if he changed thera, according to certain laws of assiraila
tion pecuUar to himself, into his specific mode of thought."
We should like to understand this expression of Kant in a
manner favourable to Herder, and to add : The beautiful, the
peculiar and adrairable in this is, that by raeans of this pro
cess of Uving personal appropriation nothing essential is lost,
but that the idea which passes through his consciousness
gains in clearness, in truth, in internal beauty for others, and
consequently also in universal validity for all, since he gives
back what he has gained, cleansed frora all dross. Herder
thought and felt in his age, with his age, and for his age.
He expressed what was on the tongues of many who, how
ever, could not utter it, because they lacked the proper words.
The age was mirrored in him. In hira huraanity found and
recognized itself in its huraanity. Therefore he was the pro
phet and representative of Humanity. Hence we only
understand Herder as poet, as philosopher, as theologian, and
preacher, when we at the sarae time understand hira as a
man. As he gave everything in a living raanner, it raust be
comprehended in the sarae raanner; I might say, raust be
personaUy perceived and understood thus. He who wants to
receive, as it were, only goods frora hira, to gain a definite
profit frora hira, results which he can carry home in his
pockets, will not seldom find hiraself disappointed ; he will at
first think that the load of wisdom he has found in him is
heavy, but in the end he will find but little in his hands.
But whoever seeks in him a living fountain, a strengthening
fragrance and inspiring breath, will never come to him in
vain. It is not always the bright noonday sun, which bearas
from Herder's pages ; frequentty it is a subdued light, a twi
light. But we never becorae gloomy in this twUight, we only
cling so much raore closely to the guide, who boldly leads the
way with the torch in his hand. Though we raay often wish
that he were clearer to us, stiU we never suppose for a

182 JOHN GODFREY HERDER.
moment that he hiraself does not clearly coraprehend the
raatter. There, too, where we miss plan and order, where he
leaps rather than walks, we do not fear ; and where we least
expect it, we are placed on a point from which an extensive
prospect opens to our view.
Let us now, however difficult it raay be to keep the parti
cular sides apart, stiU take up the various sides of his nature,
and in such a raanner, that we may never lose sight of the
raain object we have in view. We intentionally do not begin
with that which is connected with this main object, the theo
logical life and activity of the man, but with those talents
which supported this life, with his poetic talent, his position
in reference to philosophy and the literature of his age ; with
that, in general, which Herder coraprehended in the one
word, humanity (die Humanitat). As far as Herder the
poet is concerned, we have already observed, that many
raight prefer SchUler, Goethe, or sorae other of his cotempo
raries (for he raust only be corapared with these). We will
not dispute about such a preference. I readily admit that
much, perhaps the most, of the earlier poetry of Herder, has
soraething harsh, un pliant in it, which can only be read with
reluctance. Herder's poeras neither recoraraend themselves
by the sweetness of the rhyrae (the raost are blank verse),
nor by the beauty of the rhythra, nor by that peculiar charm,
which SchiUer 's and Goethe's poeras possess. But that con
cerns us less here. The poetical works of Herder, among
which his " Cid," his legends and cantata, are distinguished as
poetical productions, are of less interest to us, than his pure,
noble, grand poetical taste. To hira, as his wife says, poetry
was no erapty jingle of words, but the language of God;
and Jean Paul appropriately says of hira : " Even if he were
no poet, he was soraething better, a poera, an Indo-Grecian
Epos, raade by sorae one of the purest gods ; for all flowed
together in his beautiful soul, as in a poera, and the good, the
true, the beautiful, were inseparable in it." Herder was as it
were poetized in the Grecian manner according to life.
Poetry was not a horizon-appendix to his life, as we often
observe a rainbow-coloured cluster of clouds on the horizon m
foul weather, but it flew like a light rainbow over his clouded
life as a gate of heaven." This poetical disposition of Her-

JOHN GODFREY HERDER. 183
der, so deeply and heartily prized bj^ Jean Paul, was of infi-
..xbC value to his theological views. The ability to compre
hend religion poetically, to enter into the spirit of the Scrip
tural-oriental, Old Testaraent poetry, and to interpret the
sacred books ingeniously frora the spirit, was of great value,
furthered the cause of interpretation, and suddenly reraoved
many serious difficulties ; for in ray opinion the reconciliation
of theological extreraes lies to a great extent in this inge
nious poetical view ; whence do these extremes raostly origi
nate, ff not from an intelhgence too dry, freed from all poetry
of life, from a prosaic, insipid consequentness 1 from raisun
derstanding of the syrabolical ? Herder at once cut the
thread of rabbinical-scholastic subtleties, when he tore the
holy things frora profane hands and bore thera to those re
gions, into which only a consecrated taste, one susceptible to
the beautfful, the peculiar and strange, such as poetry
nourishes, can enter. He penetrated to the depths of religious
life, as it appears in the history of nations, and especially in
the people of God, whUst others were wallowing, with a
leamed air, in the slirae which had accumulated on its sur
face. To make poetry Uke Herder's more is necessary than
mere versification. Just as he gathered the songs of the
most different nations and wove thera into one garland, and
with the sarae susceptibUity and raobility of spirit inhaled
the fragrance of Grecian poetry, with which he irabibed the
songs of Job and Ossian ; so, too, did he make history the
ground on which his sublirae views of Ufe, his philosophy,
rested. Herder was a philosophical poet, and a poetical philosopher ;
but he was neither of these in that superficial generality, in
which pretended geniuses love to wander, without foundation,
without nourishing roots. Poetry and pliiTosophy were the
blossoras of his spirit ; the trank, however, had its roots in
history, not indeed in the history of one people or age, but in
the history of the huraan race. The thought first seized by
Isaac Iselin, to show " the progress of huraanity frora the
lowest degree of ignorance to continuaUy increasing Ught and
prosperity," was farther developed by Herder in his " Ideas
for a philosophy of the history of huraanity." Afready, in the
title of the book. Herder's raind reflects itself, which does not

184 JOHN GODFREY HERDER.
want philosophy and history to be separated, but to be studied
in their raost intiraate connection and relations to each other.
He had as great an aversion to a philosophy which, regardless
of history, forras its systera from abstract propositions, as to
a bistory, which only accumulates a mass of raaterials, without
letting philosophical ideas shine and waft through them. In this
joining of the historical with the philosophical, which forms a
higher unity by connecting itself with the poetical view of the
world raentioned above, lies the secret of Herder's genius.
" Poetry, philosophy, and history^' he says hiraself, " are, in
my opinion, the three Ughts which iUumine the nations, the
sects and the generations ; a holy triangle ! Poetry elevates
raan above all separation and partiality by means of an agree
able, vivid presence of the objects ; philosophy gives him firm,
lasting principles in reference to thera, and, if he stiU needs
thera, history will not refuse to give him maxiras."
Just as forraerly his poetical view of the world, so now too
his historical-philosophic sense gives the raeans of judging of
the influence to be exerted on the formation of the religious
ideas : for, since the error and partiality of Rationalism con
sisted in this, that, with a disregard for an historical founda
tion and development, it wanted to set a religion of reason in
place of the existing religion ; and the error and partiality of
the Orthodoxy of that time in tbis, that it onlj' clung to the
historical as dead precepts. Herder had already made progress
towards a real mediation between the two, in not being able
on the one hand to conceive of anything developed and really
present in man, which had not been acqufred through instruc
tion, through historjr, through divine coraraunication and reve
lation, nor, on the other hand, of anything which had come
altogether to and into him frora without, unless thereis some
thing analogous in raan hiraself, with which he recognises that
of which he raay obtain a knowledge (which exists for him),
receives it, reflects on it, developes and advances it, as much as
he is able. He thus, for instance, attacked, in his prize essay
on the Origin of Language, the apparently pious, but really
raechanical view, that man received language altogether as a
divine comraunication, whilst he himself thought that the
origin can only be properly regarded as divine, in so far as it is
huraan. In general, there was not that contrast between the

JOHN GODFEEY HEEDEE. 185
divine and human for Herder, which is usuaUy thought of in con- ,.
nection with these words, according to which God lacks aU that
is human and raan all that is divine, or at least only an ex
ternal approach of the one to the other takes place ; he wanted
to see the divine brought about or mediated through the
human, and the human glorified and ennobled by the divine.
To hira all was divine and all huraan, according to the view
you take of the raatter. We have called Herder a priest of
the purely huraan, a priest of huraanity. We will pursue
this thought farther, before we conteraplate hira as a theo
logian. Let us now erabrace poetry, phUosophy and history, which
we have thus far contemplated as separate branches of his
nature and activity, in that one word which he emphasized
more than any other, which he continually had in his raouth,
but stiU raore in his soul, in the word Humanity. This word,
like the word tolerance and sirailar party words, becarae a
shibboleth of that age, and therefore it is necessary that here,
with the representative of humanity, we also obtain a clear
idea of the word, with which a great part of modern history
is connected, that we consider the relation which this modem
huraanity has taken to the Christianity and Protestantism of
the age. We properly ask in the first place : What did
Herder himself understand by the word 1 Herder knew very
well that a word does not decide a raatter, and that an odiura
is easily cast upon the word ; but stiU he knew none that was
better.^ The dignity of human nature, he thought, is a
characteristic of our race, to which it must first be brought by
education. The beautiful word philanthropy, he thought, had
become so trivial that the huraan race is raostly loved, so as
really to love no one among men. He, therefore, chose the
foreign word humanity. In it he sees the character of our
race which, however, is only potentially innate, and which
must properly be acquired by cultivation. " We do not bring
it," he says, " really with us into the world, but in the world
it oifght to be the aim of our striving, the sura of our efforts,
our dignity. The divine in our race is therefore cultivation,
leading to humanity ; aU great and good raen, lawgivers, in-
' See especially the letters on huraanity, and the ideas for a history of the
philosophy ofthe human race (Werke zur Phil, und Gesch., vol. iii., p. 217).

1 86 JOHN GODFREY HERDER.
ventors, phUosopbers, poets, artists, all noblemen in every rank
of society, have aided in this work, by the education of their
children, by the performance of their duties, by example, con
duct, precepts and doctrines. Huraanity is the treasure and
profit of all huraan labours, the art, as it were, of our race.
The education, leading to it, is a work which raust be carried
on unceasingly, or we sink, higher and lower classes, back to
rude brutishness and barbarity." He does not regard humanity
as old as the huraan race. Whilst the notion of man brings
to raind his weakness and frailty, it also calls to mind his
human nature, his syrapathy with his fellow raen. Know
ledge of human nature, developraent of raan's powers and
talents in a raanner conforraable to this nature, the gather
ing of all, caUed raan, into the one city of God which is
governed by only one law, the law of coramon (universal)
reason, this is, according to Herder, the task to be performed
by huraanity. " I wish," he says, " that in the word Hu
raanity I could coraprehend all that I have heretofore said
about man's noble education, leading to reason and freedom,
to the fiUing and dominion over the earth ; for man has no
nobler word for his design than he hiraself is." So far Herder
himself Now, we raay ask, is not all this the object of Christianity?
Certainty. Herder, too, regarded it in this light. " Chris
tianity," he says, " commands the purest humanity in th
purest way." But why, then, we ask further, beside the
preaching of Christianity, that of huraanity ? The answer to
this question can best be given historically ; and, therefore,
perrait me to give this historical explanation of the relation of
humanity to Christianity and Protestantisra, as a supplement,
as it were, to Herder's lffe. Christianity is, of course, the re
ligion of tbe huraan race. Christ, the Son of Man, is also the
best friend of man, and his spirit the true educator of hu
manity. But we know how soon these simple ideas were lost
sight of bow the Christian doctrine had been alienated from
raan by the accuraulation of heterogeneous precepts, and how
from a misunderstanding of the doctrines of natural depravity,
it was believed, at one tirae, that raan ought to be deprived of
his huraan nature, whilst at another the superhuman was
demanded of him, Christianity, of course, requires more than

JOHN GODFEEY HEEDEE. 187
the raere cultivation of the natural man ; it wants the restor
ation of man to the image of God. In this respect it differs
from humanity in the ancient, ante-Christian sense. It knows
an old and a new raan. We are to lay aside the old man,
destroying himself with his lusts, and are to put on the new
man, formed after the image of God, in righteousness and holi
ness, But this new raan created in God's iraage is again to
become natural for us through God's grace ; Christ is to live
in us, the inner raan is to renew hiraself day by day, and this
new raan is not to fit us raerely as a new dress, in which we
move stiffly and feel uncomfortable, but is to become a second
nature to us, is to conquer the old that is in us, and to perrait
us to take sure free steps, as those that are regenerated, called,
and iUurainated, even as the sons of God. For a long tirae,
however, Christendora did not coraprehend this becoraing
natural of the supernatural, this entering of the divine into
the human, and tbe elevation of the huraan to the divine.
The old variance between the huraan and the divine always
appeared again, persons always thought they were accora
plishing soraething particularly holy by stifling, dislodging,
and wrenching huraan thoughts and irapulses ; hence the ex
crescence of raonkish piety in the raiddle ages which disowned
human nature ; hence the abortion of scholastlcisra, which
turned the raind away frora a healthy conteraplation of itself
and nature. These phenoraena, though they had grown on
Christian soil, were in opposition to huraanity. The Refor
mation restored the divine as weU as the huraan to its rights.
Indeed, feven before this, the interest in huraan affairs, for
huraan life and efforts had been awakened by the restoration
of the sciences, and the revival of the study of the ancients ;
still this humanism (as we call it, to distinguish it frora the
modern " humanity)" was not sufficient, since it connected
itself too rauch with the old world of the Grecians and Roraans,
and only externally with Christianity. A greater revival,
proceeding frora the deepest reUgious experience, and a regen
eration, proceeding from faith, were necessary, which actually
occurred in the Reforraation. But how was huraanity re
lated to this work of the Reformation ? We do not deny
that Luther had a sense for the purely human, for it often
appears in hira in its most lovely naivete'. But this very

188 JOHN GODFREY HEEDEE.
naivete indicates that the purely huraan never carae to con
sciousness in hira. His sense for the huraan, as such, recedes
far behind his enthusiasra for the divine purposes he served,
and in his position this was very proper.' The harshness of
his natural disposition raay also have hid many pure expres
sions of the humanity in him, whilst the calmer, raore refined
Melancthon rather raakes the impi-ession of a huraan theo
logian. Afterwards humanity was, however, again driven from
theology. Rough, heartless quarrels frightened it away, and
only a few noble men, like Valentine Andreae (a favourite of
Herder), projected, with their bright huraan physiognomies,
above the heads of the corabatants. Neither was pietism,
though it accoraplished rauch good, compared with the old
orthodoxy, exactly distinguished for huraanity. It is true
that, in its earliest period, in the days of Spener aud Francke,
and, still later, it developed a great deal of active philan
thropy, and its grand institutions are in the highest degree
institutions of humanity, and noble witnesses of the same.
But the other, the raore ideal side of huraanity, that open
sense for the raost various human developraents, for the culti
vation of all talents, the artistic, too, in one word, the sense
for the beautiful, was wanting in pietisra. It was, therefore,
reserved for the eighteenth century to understand, to cherish,
to exercise and vivify this sense, which then awakened on
every hand, and manifested itself in aU the tendencies ; and
in this century it was Herder who took the lead and opened
a new way. What the philanthropy of Basedow had com
raenced awkwardly and in a rough raanner, and what the
noble Iselin had already atterapted in a finer way but only m
tiraid intimations and to a raore liraited extent, that Herder
now accomplished through his deeper truth, his nobler ten
dency and the greater extension of his works, and thus Herder
promoted the cause of EvangeUcal Protestantism, since he, as
it were, introduced huraanity into it, and humanized the
Reforraation. But everything has its shady side, and we dare not close
our eyes against the fact that the enthusiasra for Humamty,
every where raet with, at that tirae, could easUy take a wrong
' Schenkel in his "Wesen des Protestantisraus" has shown that in Luthers
Chriitology the human does not receive its due.

JOHN GODFEEY HERDER. 189
direction, and that that which was intended to, occupy a place
in the history of the developraent of EvangeUcal Protest
antism produced disagreeable effects, when, severed from the
whole, it developed in a poetical manner. From the very
effort and zeal to seek only the man in raan, man could finaUy
not be found, and what Herder said of the beautiful word
philanthropy could soon be said of Humanity — that raany had
it on their tongues, without even showing theraselves huraan
in life. The charra which always lies in the sound of a
new word led raany away from these simple Evangelical
truths, and to look down upon Christianity as a lower
grade of Humanity, if indeed it, did not appear to their
eyes like barbarity. What was called Huraanity of course
was opposed to the liraitations of nations and confessions of
forraer tiraes. Every one was to feel hiraself a raan, and in
this feeling all was to vanish, that separates the members of
one nation from those of another, and the professors of one
religion frora the professors of a different one. If this were
so understood, that it is only the partial, the selfish and the
wrong which separates raan frora raan under the garb of na
tionality and religion, and which leads to contracted reserve
and senseless hatred towards others, then the preaching of
humanity was quite in place. But how easily this lauded hu
manity became indifferent to all that is popular and religious,
and produced cosmopolitanism in poUtics and indifferentism
in religion ! How soon did the ideal love for the Patago
nians and Iroquois supplant the active love for the neighbour;
and how soon did the professors of huraanity withdraw frora
the Christian coraraunity, in heart at least, and revile, in the
most inhuraan manner, all that was accomplished by the
Church or proceeded from it ! Whilst it had forraerly been
demanded that the raan should be put off in order to becorae
a Christian, it was now deraanded that Christ should be put
off in order to be — raan. From what has afready been said,
it must be evident that this was not Herder's view. As far
as the national is concerned, none had a raore Gerraan heart
than his, however susceptible and open his sense for all the
different nationalities ; and in reference to Christianity it
might perhaps be acknowledged that in the latter part of his
life he permitted what is peculiar to Christianity to disappear

190 JOHN GODFREY HERDER.
¦ too ranch in its historic and dograatic distinctness, before the
idea of the purely huraan, as he called it. But of this we
cannot judge, till we have learned to know Herder the theo
logian raore fully. Let rae here quote the proposition which
Herder regards as the watchword of both Huraanity and
Christianity: "Whilst bad raoraUty is satisfied with the
proverb, 'Every one for hiraself, no one for all;' the saying,
' No one for hiraseff, every one for all,' is the watchword of
Christianity" — and also of Huraanity in Herder's sense of the
word. We have considered Herder the poet, the philosophical his
torian, or, if you prefer it, the historical philosopher. Herder
the prophet and representative of Huraanity, and have also
atterapted to explain the nature of humanity as a co-operat
ing power in the department of raind. We now come to
speak of Herder the theologian. The above remarks had to
precede in order that the present view we take of Herder
raight have a foundation ; for Herder the theologian stands
on the foundation that we have seen spread out before us, on
the foundation of a general huraan education, on the founda
tion of huraanity. His theological were not separated from
his other labours ; he was not a scholar, who occasionally
wrote poetry as a recreation ; not a preacher who, when he
had no preaching to do, gave hiraseff up to the study of his
tory as a favourite occupation. All was, as we have seen, the
sarae to hira. He was a theological poet and a poetical theo
logian. Poetiy and prose, the spiritual and the natural, the
scientific and the popular were given in and with one another
by hira. In his works, not theological, he was just as apt to
appear too theological for the worldly-rainded, as on tbe other
hand too little theological to stiff professional men in his
theological works, and to the anxiously pious too worldly.
He has also drawn Theology into the sphere of what is purely
huraan, into the sphere of Humanity. Bible and Christianity,
divine in their origin, have been humanized to a certain
extent by him. Persons may be fiightened at this thought
of humanization, but the fear wUl vanish or at least decrease,
when we explain ourselves more fully. AU depends on what
you understand by the human, with what raeasure you measure
raan. If by the huraan you understand the bad, the frail, the

JOHN GODFEEY HERDER. 191
sinful, the miserable, then, indeed, it sounds Uke blasphemy to
call Christianity a human reUgion and the Bible a huraan book ;
then it would araount to this : What you have regarded as
divine till now, and venerated as such, is an empty human
work, a human invention, an arbitrary despotic comraand
sheer deception. Such language was indeed made use of already
before Herder's tirae and has been used at all tiraes. Bu
whoever thinks that Herder, in the least chiraed in with such
language woiUd only show his ignorance of the thoughts of the
great raan. Herder wanted the very opposite., The Bible
which so raany laboured to reraove as an obsolete, incorapre
hensible book, as an arsenal of old prejudices, this very Bible
he laboured to place as the candle in the centre of the sanc
tuary, just as Luther had done in the days of the Reforraation.
The despised, the reviled form of the Son of Man which the
meanest souls ever thought they had a right to deride, he
wanted to revive again before the eyes of the world and so
present in its innate glory, His raajesty in the forra of a ser
vant, and (of course in a different sense frora that of Pilate) to
exclaira, " Behold the raan ! " He wanted to proclaira the fact
that he too knew no other narae, by which raen can be saved,
than the narae Jesus Christ.
All the efforts of Herder appeared to be apologetical, and
displayed a fresh courage to defend the divinity of the Bible
and Christianity in opposition to the spirit of freethinking.
This we find especially in Herder's earUer writings, in the
most decided, most powerful language, even at the risk of
being regarded as a blockhead by the " lUurainati." But it
must certainly have grieved Herder, when the theologians, by
their awkward defences, gave weapons into the hands of their
opponents, when they sought the divinity of the Bible and
Christianity, where it ought not to be sought, when they were
zealous for the letter, whUst they suffered the spirit to vanish,
or again, when they, on the other hand, too easily abandoned
what ought not to be abandoned, and when they theraselves
assisted in bringing the Bible into disrepute by their artful
and forced interpretation. Herder required of every person
who wanted to have an opinion to express about the Bible
and Christianity, that he should understand thera clearly, and
should not cling merely to given words and conceptions, but

192 JOHN GODFREY HERDER.
should read the Bible, as it ought to be read, as a book which,
with all its divinity, with its divine origin and divine ends,
is still written by huraan hands for huraan beings, for a human
eye, a human heart, a human understanding ; as a book which,
though written for all tinies, even for eternity, stUl refers to
certain tiraes and occasions, and raust be interpreted from
these given tiraes and occasions. This genuine, purely human
view of the Bible, which Luther had already laid great stress
upon, and in which light only it gains the favour of man, was
again raade conspicuous by Herder, and in this sense he began
his letters on the study of theology with the words : " It is
true, my dear sir ! the best study of divinity is the study of
the; Bible, and the best reading of this divine book is human
The Bible raust be read in a human manner, for it is a book
written by raen for raen. The more huraanly we read the
Word of God, the nearer we corae to the design of its Author,
who created man in His image, and acts humanly in aU His
actions and kindnesses, in which He manifests himself as our
God." Each one must see that this human was not to be in
the way of the divine, but was rather to serve as a support
for it. And in how childUke a manner, how humbly did
Herder himself open his heart and his raind to the divine
Spirit which speaks to us through the Bible ! " As a child,"
so he writes in his letters to Theophron, " hears the voice of
its father, as the lover hears the voice of his bride, so we hear
God's voice in the Scriptures, and perceive the sound of
eternity in it. . . . Whilst God's Word in the bands
of the critic is like a squeezed leraon ; God be praised ! it
appears to rae now again as a fruit, whicii flourishes on the
living tree." However necessary Herder regarded a scientific
raethod of treating the Bible and scientiflc inquiries in refer-
encci to it and its history ; and however little he desired to
check labours of this kind, to which such as Wetstein, Semler,
Ernesti and others, had given an irapulse ; still he was de
cidedly opposed to all hypercriticism, to all artificial and dis
torted interpretations, with which many at that time began
to martyr the Bible.
He who was the first to hold the principle that the Scnp-
tures must be comprehended and enjoyed with a poetical
sense, strongly opposed the levity of those who wanted to

i I

JOHN GODFEEY HERDER. ] 9 3
make the historical part of the Bible mere poetry. " Then,"
he says, " I would rather wish all poetry away, and in its
place the raost naked and driest history." Thus here, too,
his historical sense balanced the poetical. " Truly it is,"
Herder continues, " a fine thread which passes through the
Bible, Old and New Testaraent, especially in those places in
which figure and fact, history and poetry are blended. Rough
hands can seldora foUow it, rauch less unroll it, without tear
ing and tangling it, without injuring either the poetry or the
history, which are spun by this thread into one web. Then,
indeed, interpreting belongs to God, or to that man on whora
the spirit of the gods, the genius of aU ages, and, as it were,
the infancy of the race rests. If persons atterapt it, who
know nothing of this spirit, to whora nothing is raore foreign
than a poetical feeling, especially that of the Orient, and
though they are the greatest dogmatists and critics in the
world — the plant grows pale at their breath and -withers in
their hands." Truly golden words, which ought to be placed
in large letters over the judgment-seats of many critics of
modern times !
This poetical feeling of the Orient, deraanded by Herder,
he himself possessed in the highest degree, and it assisted
him in all his labours. It was not, however, a feeling ac
quired by study, but was experienced. Had Herder been so
fortunate as to make a joumey to the Orient, what a profit
might then the Occident have gained ! But even in the
Occident Herder felt Oriental, because he everywhere looked
for the key-note of nature with the susceptible feeling of the
Orient. "Thus his voyage from Riga to Nantes was a living
commentary to him, partly for understanding Ossian, partly,
too, for understanding the Bible. " What great spheres of
thought," he exclairas, in his joumal of travel, " does not a
ship, hovering between heaven and earth, open up to the
mind ? Here all gives thought wings, and raotion, and
atmosphere ! The fluttering sail, the ever-moving ship, the
roaring waves, the boundless -view ! On the earth, one is
fixed to a dead point, and is confined to a sraaU place. Fre
quently the former is the student's chair in a glooray room,
the seat by a plain table, a pulpit, a lecturer's chafr —
often the latter is only a small city, with a uniformity of
N

194 JOHN GODFREY HERDER.
occupation  Let one now suddenly step out, or
rather let one be cast out without books, writings, or occupa
tion — what a different prospect ! Where is the fixed gi-ound
on which I stood so firraly, and the small pulpit and the
student's and lecturer's chair on which I felt myself proud?
Where are those whom I feared and whora I loved ? 0 my
soul ! how wiU it be with thee when thou leavest this world?
The narrow, fixed, liraited centre has vanished, thou flutterest
in the air, or swiraraest on a sea — the world vanishes from
thy view — is gone !  A philosopher he even who
has learned to phUosophize from nature but poorly, without
books and instruraents ! Could I have done this, what a
standpoint, sitting under a mast on the wide ocean, to philo
sophize on heaven, the sun, stars, moon, afr, wind, the ocean,
rain, storra, flshes, the depth of the sea, and to discover the
physics of all these. Philosopher of nature, this should be
thy standpoint with the youth whom thou instructest ! "
And this standpoint Herder also sought to gain for his inter
pretation of the Bible. " The crew," he says, among other
things, " are always a people who are chiefly attached to the
superstitious and wonderful. Since they are necessitated to
pay attention to wind and weather, to Uttle indications and
foretokens, and since their fate depends on phenomena in the
heavens, sufficient occasion is given to notice little signs and
forebodings, and also to inspire them with a kind of reve
rential awe, and induce thera to study oraens. . . What
raan will not pray during a storra in a fearfully dark night,
in terapests, in places where pale death dweUs? Where
huraan aid fails, man always falls back on divine aid. . . •
Whoever believes and prays will, though he were in other
respects a rough, wicked fellow, in view of the objects on the
sea have pious words in his mouth, and not ask how was
Jonah in the whale's belly ? for he considers nothing impos
sible for the great God, although he may think himseff able
to make his own religion, and raay reject the Bible. The
entire ship-language, the waking, the change of the watch is
therefore in such pious expressions,' and as solemn as a song
from the belly of a flsh." Thus Herder studied his subhme
philosophy, but also his exegesis and theology in tbe sear

JOHN GODFREY HERDER. 195
breeze araong the sailors, as Luther in the Wartburg once
reflected on his Bible, and pursued theological thoughts while
in the chase. Such studies of nature, in the higher sense,
have always promoted a sound divinity more, than mere book-
learning. The ideas which Herder laid down in his " Oldest
Records of the Huraan Race," in which he took the Mosaic
account of creation from the hands of those who want to see
a mere corapendiura of physics in it, are indebted to these
powerful irapressions from nature for their origin. To him
sunrise, as it appears anew every day, is the living picture of
the flrst raorning of creation, and, as then, nature gradually
awakes, as fogs and vapour vanish, and the earth and flrraa-
raent continually become more definite and distinct ; as gra
dually the vegetable kingdora unfolds itseff, as the aniraals
leave their hiding-places and raan awakes to consciousness —
this was to hira like the therae of Genesis repeated daily ;
herein he found the etemal truth of the six days' creation.
In a similar manner Herder viewed raany other parts of the
Old Testament. The poetical, living contemplation is always
the most prominent, as it appears so beautifully in his work
on the " Spirit of Hebrew Poetry," through which he gave a
new impulse to the study of the Old Testament.
But Herder's theological character is only half understood
if we see in hira only the fr genious interpreter of the figura
tive language of the Old Testaraent, and the eloquent defender
of the oldest revelations. We are particularly concerned to
know Herder's Christian convictions, and his raore definite
relation to the Evangelical Protestant Church, to its doctrines,
its govemment, its entire development. Herder wrote no
system of Christian doctrines,^ he only explained isolated
books of the New Testament, the Epistles of the brothers of
Jesus, James and Jude ; he has alraost left entirely untouched
the great treasure of Paul's Epistles, which properly forra the
dogmatic foundation and kernel of the doctrines of the Evan
geUcal Church, though he esteemed the Apostle and his teach
ings very highly. He, however, understood raore clearly
than raany in his day that Christ hiraself is the centre of
Christianity, not only the doctrine, but the person of Jesus
' Such a system was afterwards formed from his works with the title,
" Herder's Dogmatics." Jena, 1805.

1 9 6 JOHN GODFREY HERDER.
Christ, whose iraage he was anxious to stamp on the souls of
his hearers and readers, just as he bore it in his own souL'
Here Herder again followed his own course as raight be ex
pected. He had an aversion to all leamed disputes about the
divine and huraan nature of Christ and their union, because
in such learned definitions he saw the death of aU religion.
Still, he was fully convinced that in Christ, both the divine
and huraan must be viewed, and these again in the raost inti
mate union. The two works, "Of the Redeeraer of Man," accord
ing to the first three Evangelists, and " Of the Son of God,
the Saviour of the World " (according to the Gospel of John),
are supplemental to each other, so that in the one the Son of
Man, the teacher, the prophet, is more prorainent, and in the
other, the Word of God revealed as raan. Logos made flesh.
Whilst those who raade Christ a raere popular teacher took
offence at the Gospel of John, and regarded it with suspicious
eyes as the raine of raysticisra. Herder on the other hand
said, " that little book is a stiU, deep sea in which . . .
the heavens with the sun and stars are mfrrored, and if there
are eternal truths (and such there are) for the human race,
they are to be found in the Gospel of John." He did not
fear the depth of the Christian raysteries ; he required, how
ever, that persons to enter thera raust be provided with an
anticipating spirit, and raust be prepared to look into their
depths, and not to approach thera with the vain presumption
of huraan criticisra, which touches holy things with rough,
unskiUed hands. Here, again, he was assisted by his Orient-
alisra. He atterapted to explain the raystic expressions and
sacred flgures of the New Testaraent by raeans of the newly
disco'vered oriental source of Zoroaster's teachings. But he
did not stop with the figures ; he insisted on the kemel, the
contents, the fact, lying at the basis of the figurative expres-
' "The kingdom of God," he says, in the sermon at Weimar, mentioned
above, " and Christ's feast, are not intended to be word and figure, but to be
come truth and reality : we are to taste and see what joys God has prepared for
us in Jesus Christ, and in the entrance into his nature, to his feast of noble
equality. In every act, every circumstance of life, we ought to feel ourselves as
brethren at the sarae table ; in the will and love of the great King of the world
we should rest as in the bosom of the Father, at the feast of our beloved. The
elevated, quiet joy of Jesus, the spirit which breathes in the etemal kingdom of
God, ought to speak through us, pass over to others, and silently to testify of
us."

JOHN GODFEEY HEEDEE. 197
sion. " It is evident," he says, " frora the entire New Testa
ment that Jesus raust be regarded as the first active source of
the purification, of the deliverance and of the blessing of the
world, not with an ' as it were,' or ' that was only so and so,'
but in reality."
As Herder gave the advice that the Bible ought to be
read in a human raanner, so he also preferred to raake the
human in Christ conspicuous, that is, the divine, as it appears
in human relations and circumstances. Everywhere he calls
attention to the fine, tender shades in Christ's character, as
represented in the gospels, and lets us, as it were, obtain
glimpses of the divine through the huraan. As Jesus is to
him the revealer and representative of divinity among raen,
so he regards Hira also as the representative of huraanity,
always lajdng perhaps too rauch stress on the expression " Son
of Man." It raay be that, ff the sura is taken of aU that
Herder said about Christ, the huraan raode of view prepon
derates; yes, that this soraetiraes passes over into cosraopolitan-
ism. Thus it raay surprise sorae, when Herder says in vari
ous places, that Christianity would stiU continue, though the
name of its founder were forgotten. But there is certainly a
difference between Uving under the shadow of a tree, yea,
feeling ourselves branches of the tree and absorbing its
nourishing sap, and merely receiving the fruit frora a thfrd
person. This Herder must have known and felt. But why
shaU we conceal it ? A thoughtful and impartial reader of
Herder's -writings cannot easily fail to discover that the
author in his later theological works, and exactly in those
which are entitled " Christian writings," has here and there
sunk frora the height of that enthusiastic conteraplation on
which we behold hira in the writings of his younger days ;
that he has approached very rauch the level regions of a mode
of conteraplation, which makes all even, wipes out aU sharp
outUnes, -without, however, which is to be well marked, be
coming flat himself
Whoever reads this author vnth attention, and does not
merely admire and echo his sentiments, must find it possible
to refute Herder with Herder ; so that Gervinus in his " Na
tional Literature of the Germans," justly reraarks, that with
aU love and regard for hira, one can frequently not be a fol
lower of his without at the sarae time becoming his opponent.

198 JOHN GODFREY HERDER.
This was the case with the raost intimate friends of Herder,
as Hamann, who accused hira of leaving his forraer principles.
But we would as little like to say, on this account, with
Niebuhr, that Herder ever ceased to be reUgious, as to denote
with Gervinus this period of greater sobriety as his brightest
period. We rather agree with the editor of Herder's works,
J. G. MiUIer, when, in his preface to the Christian writings,
he says, " The spirit in which these writings, too, have been
written is pure, open, honest, noble, towards the holy, rever
ential, and in this respect certainly, traly Christian. As in all
his other works, so here. Herder never dissembles. Christianity
was to bim a raatter of the heart from his youth. Every
reader of these writings vcill feel this, who has an ear for the
language of the heart and of conviction. Love of God and
of the truth are the spirit of Christianity, and he who haa
these perhaps loses nothing, if here and there, in less import
ant matters, his vi8ws do not quite correspond with the truth.
Who ever knew it fully?"
What interests us particularly in Herder, and also enables
us to overlook the change and shades of his views to a certain
extent, is this, that he did not place the essence of religion in
dogmas as such, but separated it from thera. Whilst others
still raade religion a matter of the head, or an empty external
show and performance, he raade it a raatter of the heart,
" Dograas," he says, " separate and initate, rehgion unites.
Let words and syUables be idolized, and the intoxication will
last for a while ; then it ceases, and the naked scaffold re
raains. Religion, on the other hand, is a Uving fountain ;
though it be dammed up and obstructed, still it -will break
forth out of its depths and purify itself will quicken and
animate." "ReUgion is (this Herder knew distinctly before
it was confirmed by Jacobi and Schleiermaeher) a matter of
the soul, of the inraost consciousness ; . . . it is the
marrow of a raan's disposition, the raost careful conscientious
ness of his inner consciousness, the altar of his heart." We
will not, therefore, stop to learn Herder's dogmas one by one,
or to harmonize them, where they appear to contradict each
other He was not a school-dogmatist and did not want to be
one, though he knew howto estiraate the scientific value of exact
definitions in their place. He regarded the character more
than knowledge in the raan as well as in the scholar, in the

JOHN GODFREY HEEDEE. 199
Christian as well as in the theologian. " I think," he says,
"the raost important thing in our being is character, not
knowledge and science. These are only finely ground instru
ments, with which much good, but also rauch that is useless
and injurious raay be done ; it depends on the hand that uses
thera. It is, for instance, iraraaterial for practical purposes,
whether I understand a raoral truth syraboUcally or in a
general forra ; it is sufficient ff I understand it in a living
manner and obey it."
Let us therefore examine Herder's theological character
raore closely, whilst we see him raoving in his practical theo
logical sphere as preacher, as pastor, as superior of the Church,
and as schoolraan. Certainly no one has ever called Herder
a pietist. But still he had this in coramon with pietism and
its founder, Spener, and also with Luther and the other re
formers, that he required more of the minister than a mere
scientific or leamed preparation, or speculative mis-prepara
tion, since he regarded piety — a Christian piety, nourished
by Scripture — as the soul of theology. "A theologian,"
Herder says, " ought to be reasonably weU educated, and
ought to learn from childhood the Bible as practical religion.
He ought early to have the example of pious, active parents,
and to use all dUigence, like Tiraothy, to becorae an active
man of God, skiUed in doctrine and in life. Boorish, rough,
and wUd manners, low airas of avarice, of pride, indolence,
and other wrong motives, on account of which theology may
be chosen, are injurious to an understanding as weU as to a
feeUng and application of the truth. No ray of light can
pierce through a hard earthen vessel ; rauch less can such a
vessel be raade a rainor to refiect Ught to others." "Let
prayer and reading of the Bible," so he advises the young
theologian, " be your food morning and evening." " A taste
for God and divine things, this is the genuine study of theo
logy." . . . "A quiet fervour, a heart warm, innocent,
modest, but stUl high and noble in its aspirations !" — this he
valued above aU other things in young men who devoted
themselves to the rainistry. And how high and noble were
Herder's ideas of this office ! I have already mentioned in
my former lectures, that the tendency of the time was to raake
aU things practically useful, and that even the pious and

200 JOHN GODFREY HERDER.
well-raeaning Spalding assisted this tendency in his work,
" On the Usefulness of the Ministerial Office." Herder
esteeraed the author hiraself highly, and indeed never attacked
the book directly ; but it was the occasion of his forcibly
attacking low views of the rainisterial office. This he did in
the pro-vincial papers. The patriarchs of the old covenant,
the priests and prophets, Christ and His apostles — these he
regarded as the patterns for all ages, whose exaraple even the
poorest preacher of the Word ought to follow. He ought to
iraitate thera, and not pliantly accoraraodate hiraself to the
requirements of an effeminate and secularizing age. These
were Herder's views on the duties of the rainistry. He re
garded the office of the preacher as God's office. To him all
real wisdora rests on theology as its deepest root. It was a
very repugnant thought to Herder, that preachers ought only
to be teachers of vdsdora and virtue, as the spirit of that age
asserted. " Why then," he asks, " do you not come down
from your pulpits, which are clumsy chairs for teaching ? . .
Of what use, then, are these Gothic buildings, these altars,
etc. No ! religion, true reUgion must return, or a preacher
wiU continue to be the most indefinite, the idlest, and most
indifferent thing on earth  Teachers of religion !
true ministers of the Word of God ! what a work have you
to perforra in our century ! The harvest is great, but un
fortunately the labourers are so few." ..." But in order
to aid in this matter," the aniraated speaker continues, "it
raust be believed that there is a revelation of God in the
Bible and also in the course of the huraan race, and thus we
raust naturaUy always and everywhere corae back to the great
centre, around which aU revolves and ananges itseff — Jesus
Christ, the Corner-stone and Heir, the greatest Messenger,
Teacher, Pattern, but also according to His person the Comer-
stone of salvation, on which we must found all that the other
world wiU approve."
Whilst it was the tendency of the tiraes to separate religi
ous instruction frora history, and use the latter merely as a
coUection of exaraples for morality, Herder recommended as
strongly as possible the history of religion as the foundation
of religious education, on which all must be based. For him
the beautiful plant of God grows from the living seed of the

JOHN GODFEEY HEEDEE. 201
facts of history; its soil is revelation — its raain sap and power,
faith. Interpretation of Scripture is, howe-ver, to be the
principal business of the preacher ; not raere preaching and
reasoning on morality. " If raorality," he says, " is the chief
business of the preacher, -and the Bible and words of Jesus
are raere quotations -which corae frora God, just as aU truth
comes from Hira, then farewell Christianity, reUgion, revela
tion — the names become poUte raasks, and that is about all."
Then, he thought, we might as well preach from Seneca and
Epictetus as from the Bible. Therefore Herder also disap
proved very much that pulpit eloquence was raodelled after
worldly heathen patterns, after Deraosthenes and Cicero, who
treated entirely different subjects, had different audiences, and
aimed at results also very different. He, therefore, rejected
aU those theories of pulpit eloquence, with which the litera
ture of the day began to teem, as a miserable invention of the
age. He himseff in preaching, despising all vain display,
adopted the simple form of explaining Scripture, the oldest
form, the homily. According to the testiraony of those who
saw and heard hira, his .appearance in the pulpit was very
imposing, though he did not assist in this with gestures, but
on the contrary stood almost motionless ; but the expression
of his voice must have been powerful. Let us hear an un
suspected witness on this subject. A witty author of those
days, Helfrick Peter Sturz, a raan by no raeans agreeing with
Herder's writings, says the following in a letter : " I have
heard Herder preach in Pyrraont, and I wish aU good Chris
tians who, incited by their leaders, hate hira so orthodoxly,
could hear hira. Our aristocratic congregation was not in as
susceptible a spirit of devotion as the priraitive churches, and
yet you ought to have seen bowin a few raoraents he changed
the bustle of distraction, curiosity, and vanity to the stillness
of a Moravian congregation. All hearts were opened, every
eye was fixed on hira and rejoiced in unaccustomed tears,
only sobs of eraotion were heard in the affected congregation.
My dear friend, no one preaches in such a manner, or religion
would be to aU what it ought to be, the dearest, raost con
fidential friend of raan. He preached on the text of the day,
without enthusiastic extravagance, with that enlightened, high
simplicitj' which does not need the figures and arts of the

202 JOHN GODFEEY HEEDEE.
school to transcend the wisdora of the world. Nothing was
explained, because all was clear ; no reference was made to
theological raetaphysics, which neither teach how to live or
die, but how to quarrel scientificaUy. It was no exercise of
devotion, not an attack on hardened sinners, divided in three
blows, nor any other of the current articles of pulpit manu
facture ; neither was it a cold, heathen morality, which only
looks for Socrates in the Bible, and can therefore dispense with
Christ and the Bible, but he proclairaed the faith of love, pro
clairaed by the God of love, which faith teaches us to be
patient, to suffer, to persevere, and hope, and which rewards
with its own peace and satisfaction, independently of all the
joys and sorrows of the world. So, I think, the followers of
the apostles raust have preached, who were not examined in
dogmatics, and did not play with systems and compendium
words, as children play with counters. You know how dif
ferently I think of Herder the author. We only go together
a short distance,- then he escapes from me rushing, shining,
and quick as a rocket ; but as a preacher and a man he is a
true raan, and on the short way which we can joumey
together, he is ray dearest companion."
Herder did not write his sermons, but made raere sketches
of thera, and frora these the raost is taken which we possess
of him under the narae of serraons. Herder's sermons are
very peculiar, and cannot be corapared with others. His
intentional deviation frora the pulpit language goes so far, that
he brings into his serraons all the expressions of common life,
all foreign words, altogether adopts the language of common
conversation, and even gives free course to satfre. Of many
of his serraons we can scarcely beUeve that they have ever
been preached. If they were to be read before an audience
for edification they would shock everj' raoment, but one may
very appropriately read them alone. Herder's language in
his sermons is so peculiar, and so intimately connected with
the relations in which he was placed, that it can by no means
be recoraraended as a model for imitation. But the sermons
recoraraend theraselves so rauch the raore ; they elevate them
selves above what are called model serraons, for their excel
lence doe,s not consist in the regular, the methodical, but in

JOHN GODFREY HERDER. 203
the original, the individual, the characteristic, and these
qualities can never be imitated.^
Herder's manner of preaching and sermonizing was con
nected with his views of worship in general, and in this de
partment he also exerted an influence with his reforraatory
spirit. He had a great aversion to raere forras and cere
monies, no matter how fine and beautiful externaUy. " It has,
alas !" he says in one of his serraons, " becorae so usual to
confound devotion and a sleeping of the soul, piety and
sluggishness of thought, that no one wants to think with the
preacher, but each one wants the Spirit of God, to think for
him." Whatever, therefore, was not calculated to rouse the
thinking mind and the moral powers of raan, but only indis
tinct, glooray feelings, found no advocate in hira. He was
most fond of the siraplest, the truest, clearest, and the raost
powerful in the divine service. Herder did not, however,
regard public worship as a raere exercise of thought or a dry
moral institution, but his poetical disposition led hira to the
truth here, especiaUy in reference to church hyrans and
spfritual songs generaUy. ... Of his numerous poems
few are intended for use in public worship, and of tbese but
a small nuraber can be sung by the congregation : they are
cantata, hyrans or poems, free in their form. Herder never
attained the proper spirit of church hymns, because he lived
in a time to which this spfrit was foreign. He was unwilling
' " Herder's sermons," W. von Humboldt- writes in his letters to a friend,
" were very interesting. They were always thought too short, and were wished
as long again. But those which I heard were not edifying ; they touched the
heart but little." Schiller, in his correspondence with Koerner, says : " The
entire serraon (of Herder) was like a conversation which a person carries on by
himself, very plain, popular, and natural. It was less a discourse than a
rational conversation. A proposition of practical philosophy, applied to certain
particulars of common life, doctrine which would as soon be expected in a,
mosque as in a Christian church. The delivery was as simple as the contents
of the sermon : no pantomime, no play of the voice, but an earnest calm
expression. It can easily be seen that he is conscious of his dignity 
Herder's sermon pleased me better ihan any other I have erer heard; but I
must honestly confess that no sermon pleases me.'' With this confession the
criticism loses much ot its force. Afterwards he accused Herder, that he
preached of himself after his return from Italy, and had a Te Deum sung on
himself of which he (Herder) had composed the words, and had them scattered
through the church. It is to be hoped that this belongs to the gossiping men
tioned above, in which Weimar life was rich ; poor miserable wealth !

204 JOHN GODFREY HEEDEE.
to iraitate, and the ra6st gifted cannot create if the age does
not support hira.
We have now gained the standpoint from which we can
view Herder's position in reference to the history of the
'developraent of Evangelical Protestantisra, and from which
we can also determine what link he forms in the chain of
this development.
As we have already found the essence of Protestantism to
consist in this, that the spirit striving for progress, greater
freedom and clearness, boldly foUows its course in spite of
all the enraity and suspicions of erring judgments; that -with
all this progress, however, it looks back to the foundation
once firraly laid, that it does not only find pleasure in protest
ing, but rather builds on and alters than destroys, and there
fore opposes, as far as possible, all violent and forcible re
forras and revolutions with calmness ; we have in Herder the
picture of a trae Protestant, a Protestant adapted to the age
in which he lived. We find in hira both a man. of progress
and yet conservative, a man of ancient and modern times, in
so far as he was adapted to bring forth things, both old and
new, out of his treasure, and to mediate the two in an intel
lectual manner. This must be evident frora the representation
of his theological systera and his theological raode of think
ing and actingj with which we have been occupied in the
previous Chapter. Compared with the violent modern minds
and the illuminati, Herder is orthodox, and compared with
the stiff orthodox he is a bold modern raind. Vulgar Ration
alisra will raake hira out a raystical supematuralist, and vul
gar SupernaturaUsra a dangerous rationalist, against whom
one cannot be too well guarded. But it raust be so, and
always will be so, where a genuine reforraatory spirit hves and
acts. It was so with Luther, who, in opposition to the Pope,
appeared an eneray to peace and order, even as a rebel, and
in opposition to the rebels as a servile subject of princes and
a despot in raatters of religion. There wiU always be men
for whora genuine Protestantism goes too far, and again
others for whom it does not go far enough. But it would be
very unjust to charge Herder with a characterless halfness.
The true raediura, to which Protestantisra and also Herder
belong, differs frora the false raediura, which of course often

JOHN GODFEEY HERDER. 205
caUs itseff the right and true medium, in this, that it does
not vacillate, without principle and character, between the
extremes, but that it holds a ffrra definite position above the
extremes ; that it moves neither to the right nor the left ;
that it does not reject every raeans of reconciliation harshly
and pereraptorily, but yields where it ought to yield, and
clings at the peril of Ufe to what it ought to hold, and that
it is conscious of what it does, and with all apparent inclin
ation in this or that direction, neither loses sight of its object,
nor its centre of gravity.
In order that we raay estiraate Herder's Protestant dispo
sition, we raust still view hira in his practical sphere, in which
we have just left hira. We have learned to know hira as
preacher and religious poet. In his views of church hyrans
his genuine Protestant spirit revealed itself; on the one
hand his Lutheran heart, which felt itself intertwined with
the roots of Protestantisra, felt itself one with the vital
nerve of the Reforraation, and would not perrait itself to
be robbed of the faith of its fathers by the first whira of the
custora and taste of the age ; on the other hand, however, a
free, open, calm view, which knows how to discover the
enors of the old as weU as the good of the new, and which
therefore knows no close in the productions of the Christian
hfe and spirit, but always expects further developraents in
the distant future, and assists in producing thera. With the
conteraplation of Herder, as preacher and poet, we have not
yet exhausted the practical activity of the man. The large
field of church-direction, which was open to him as general
superintendent, the raanageraent of the church business, and
especiaUy the reform of the school system, for which he
laboured as part of the duties of his office, and also from love,
are still to be considered. Here we corae in contact with
the preserving spirit of Herder, which protected the old and
authentic in all its greatness, in a tirae, too, which|^thought it
could not reraove too much of the old.
We have already seen from Herder's relations in Bucke
burg, how conscientious he was in his pastoral duties. But
in Weimar, too, in the city of polite scholars, he ventured to
advocate the old church discipline, which had become un
fashionable. And in this raatter he placed hiraself directly on

206 JOHN GODFREY HERDEE
the true foundation of old approved Protestantisra. What had
raade the Reforraation necessary, but the sale of indulgences,
the rederaption of sins through raoney ? What had at that
tirae proceeded frora the Pope now proceeded frora the haughty,
frivolous spirit of the age. Many of the rich and educated
thought tbey could redeera theraselves frora church disciphne
through raoney and fines. Herder protested against this.
Regardless of the judgraent of the raembers influenced by ra
tionaUstic tendencies, be says : "The penance and censorship
of the church, taken purely in the Scriptural apostolical sense,
according to which public stumbling-blocks are removed from
the communion of the church, and repenting sinners are re
ceived again, ought by no means to be laid aside, nor to be
changed into anything which it is not intended to be, as long
as the Bible exists and we believe in a communion of saints,
which consists in forgiveness of sins, according to the third
article of the Apostles' creed, or pretend to believe it. From
this no rank is to be excluded, no one is to be excepted; for
there is no rank in Christianity. Soldiers, court-ofHcers,
princes, and ministers are Christians ; no sin can be redeemed
with raoney, and no prince can except sins and excuse them."j
Strict as Herder's -views were on this subject, they were
just as strict in reference to the licentiousness of the press
and the abuse of the so-caUed freedom of instruction. At
this tirae, in which the free word and free press are the party-
words of an unbounded reforraatory tendency of the age, it
raay not be araiss to hear Herder's -views on this subject.
" That all which calls itself science," Herder says, "' ought to
be suffered without inspection and direction»in*',a state ; I be
lieve no old lawgiver would ever have thought of such a free
dora. It is undeniable that there are abuses of science which can
only adorn theraselves with irapudence, wantonness, and licen
tiousness, and which are certainly injurious to tbe morals
and thinking of a coraraunity. Whoever will, let him ex
cuse public blasphemy, or, which is just as bad, a revUing of
sound reason, honesty, and virtue ; even praise it, if he like ;
but the State is not only at Uberty, but in duty bound to
defend and preserve its members against these. In respect to
the soundness and blessedness of certain points in thinking all
are agreed ; the govemraent raust not suffer itself to be driven

JOHN GODFREY HERDER. 207
frora these points or it will go to destruction. This is the
raore so, because the very seed of such insects is corrupt, and
is anxious to lead the whole to ruin, in which it frequently
results. The body, which has been left by the regulating
spirit, whose pulse has ceased to beat, and whose conscious
ness is gone, is unquestionably the prey of corruption. Let
us suppose that blaspheraous, wanton, scandalous writings
are allowed to be published by the State, whom wiU they in-
" fluence ? None but the weak, the sick, and unprotected part
of the State, the very persons on whora the influence wUl be
most injurious. The steady raan, the thinking, honest, indus
trious citizen, scornfully casts such things aside, and nothing
is to be feared on his account. But the idle tenderling, the
weak woraan, the inexperienced youth, perhaps even the inno
cent child, wiU read thera ; the raore elegant, raore beautiful
and attractive they are, the more they will be read by these
persons, and the worst influence will be exerted on this class
of readers, . . . The State is the mother of all the chil
dren, and ought to take care of the health, the strength, and
innocence of aU." " Every science," Herder continues, " has
its abuse. . . . Philosophy may lead to such bad results
by false reasoning ; criticism, may become so rude, impudent,
and villainous; history so false and distorted in its applica
tion, that the government ought not always to reraain indif
ferent to see so much talent misused, true science decreasing
and the false increasing, so many irapediraents placed in the
way of the forraer, and so raany retreats offered to the latter,
and finally to see all the good infiuence of literature de
stroyed." Does it not seera to every one as if Herder spoke
in our age and to our age ? I, at least, can find nothing illi
beral in this nor in his draraas which he wanted placed under
a strict censorship, and cannot, therefore, agree with Gervinus
when, in his National Literature of the Gerraans, he corapares
these and siraUar severe lectures with the blustering poleraics
of the superintendents-general of the seventeenth century. I,
of course, recognise in it something of the same spirit of dis
cipline, of order, of lawfulness, which, however, belongs to the
spirit of Protestantisra ; I even recognise in it the spirit of
Luther. Herder knew that he agreed with Luther in this
respect, and appealed to him with a good conscience, where he

208 JOHN GODFREY HERDER.
atterapted to show that change of govemment is not neces
sarily an improv^eraent of it, that ochlocracy is the worst
tyranny, and that it ought to be the pride of the Germans
not to iraitate the French in reference to loyalty and faith, and
old discipline and custoras. Herder properly attempted to
forra this feeling of loyalty frora the very foundation, and to
lay its basis in the schools ; for he regards education as the
irapelling power ofthe nations.
We shaU have occasion hereafter to forra an estimate of
Herder's pedagogical views which he developed most fuUy
in his school-addresses, and in which he was far from agreeing
with the phUanthropy of enlightenment. We now leave
Herder for sorae tirae, -vrithout, however, losing sight of him, for
he will frequently be of service to us, as a raagnitude with which
we are acquainted, and by which we can raeasure other mag
nitudes, as a person whora we have placed at the entrance of
the garden, by whora we raay find our way out again in its
various labyrinths.
We now tum our attention to another subject. As we
must follow the course of raodern German philosophy, we
must now turn to that point where this development com
menced in Kant. It raay appear strange that we speak of
Kant after Herder ; for, though they were cotemporaries, still
Kant was the older, and was Herder's teacher. I have, how
ever, done this intentionaUy, for Herder was far from being a
follower of Kant, he rather appeared as an opponent to him,
and then, in his entire education, a greater influence was
exerted on hira by ancient tiraes than on Kant, who tore
loose frora it as rauch as possible. Besides, Herder, though
the younger, had already gained a literary reputation before
Kant's Critique had excited rauch attention, so that as an
author he has seniority in his favour. But finally, and tbis is
the main reason. Herder's personality seemed much better
adapted to be first conteraplated, because it is so multiform
and interesting, whilst with Kant the system, separated
from his personaUty, will more especially require our atten
tion. I had sorae scruples, too, about coraraencing -with a
system that is, with both Iffeless and abstract. I wanted
to lay a foundation of another kind first, and this Herder

JOHN GODFREY HERDEE. 209
afforded. Strengthened and warmed by him, we may m.w
approach the marble bust of the great thinker.
In 1769 Herder wrote an essay on the ideal of a school, iu
which he agreed with Basedow in some things, and, of course,
attacked others. Like Basedow he censured the exclusive
prevalence of the Latin language in the schools, and called it
Papistic-Gothic. It was his principle, as well as that of the
new pedagogical science in general, that in the elementary in
struction the child's attention must first be directed to what
surrounds it, before the memory is burdened with names of
things farther removed from it, and that, therefore, all instruc
tion, if possible, raust be in sorae way connected with life and
the things sunounding the child. " It should be one of the
principal objects of a teacher to give the boy living- concep
tions of all that he sees, speaks about, and enjoys, in order to
place him in his world, and to impress hira for life with the '
enjoyraent of the same."
But however much Herder agreed with Rousseau and
Basedow in reference to that part of education merely huraan,
and referring to the development of the consciousness of the
world, he differed widely from them in reference to the awak
ening of the consciousness of God in the principles of religious
education. In this respect he stood on the positive foundation,
and wanted to have nothing to do with the arts, by means of
which the children were prepared to approach God, and of the
tender roundabout way on which it was thought they ought
to be led to heaven. In direct opposition to the untimely
philanthropising and reforming, he says: " Luthers Catechism
must be thoroughly lea'rned by heart, and inust remain for
ever. Explanations of it are a treasure of duties, and of the
knowledge of huraan nature. Basedow may say what he
pleases about the Jewish character of the ten commandments,
they are a fine raoraUty for chUdren." He also defends the
use of Biblical accounts, only select portions of which he
wants, however, to be used for the first stages of instruction.
Herder is ffrraly convinced that good Biblical instruction pro
duces high regard for and a knowledge of religion for Ufe, and
this he regards as the best means of creating a new Christian
pubhc. Just as Herder thought more deeply of reUgion than
the realistic pedagogues of that ag-e, so he also thought more
o

210 JOHN GODFEEY HERDER.
profoundly of language and philological studies. How could
he who, so to speak, regarded language and reason as the
.same, value philological studies lightly ; and, though he op
jiosed the excess of Latin, he estimated the study of the
German very highly, and gave exceUent bints for its improve
ment. Herder laid down his chief pedagogical principles
later in the school addresses delivered at Weimar, which have
been published under the name of ' Sophron." lu them there is,
here and there, an echo still found of the ecclesiastical tone,
¦>vhich continually became less and less in the new school lan
guage. Thus Herder is not ashamed to designate the schools
the workshops of the Holy Sjjirit. " Our ancestors,'' he snys,
in one of tliose addresses, " called the schools workshops of the
Spirit of God ;" an old-fashioned appellation, and it will, per
haps, appear strange that I rejieat it in our day and do not
ratlier speak of the temple of ApoUo, of the Muses and Graces.
The appellation, however, properly understood, expresses some
thing far raore noble, true and deep than all those idol-expres
sions of the temple of Apollo, of the Muses and Graces can
possibly do.
According to Herder, all education is to aira at giving the
man an inner power, an indwelling wisdom, a pure eye, a
clear understanding, the Holy Spirit, without which aU ac-
<piired knowledge and skill become idle apparatus or meaus
of destruction. " How beautifully," be says, " does every trial
of moral culture adorn the child and the youth ! " Is there a
more lovely brow and more beautiful eye than those in which
modesty and sharae, uprightness, confidence, humihty, and
love, the Spirit of God, dweU ? Is there a raore beautiful
charm of the gestures and limbs than when the}' aie
iinointed daily, with pure innocence and mild complais
ance, as it vi'ere with the oil of joy for beautiful activity ?
The expression of the Hebrew youth in whora the Spirit of
God dwelt frora childhood, " How then can I do this great
wickedness and sin against God, the holy thing that is in me? ,
has soraething so beautiful and powerful, that it alone is able
to keep a youth who has this holy thing within him, who
recognizes himself a teraple of the Holy Spirit, from all that
is low, coramon, and wicked. . . All distinguished
inen had this noble feeling, wliich was the very thing that

JOHN GODFREY HERDEE. 211
distinguished them frora the common raan, and preserved
thera frora aU that is base and low. He was their shield and
buckler, their counsellor and guardian, their warning friend,
their ruling genius, which impelled thera to take the narrow
way, and to press through the straight gate, instead of taking
the broad road of wanton fancy and concupiscence." .
" Spirit of God," he exclairas, " return to our schools to lay a
good foundation in the minds of the young, to form in them
a firra and pure character, which cannot be led astray by wild
iraraorality, bold irapudence aud saucy importunity, which
now prevail in so raany books."
" It is not good," he says in another place, " to raoralise
much with youth in religious instruction; but it makes a liv
ing impression to explain the doctrines and the proofs clearly,
and to support the rules of morality with reasons and ex
amples from coraraon life, and with biblical and other anecdotes."
According to these principles he revised Luthers Catechisra,
which he preferred before the new-fashioned Catechisras, which
moraUsed and reasoned much. " Of the twenty or thirty
catechisras," he writes to a coUeague, " which I had before
me, I have used rauch, but I could not make one the basis,
because in the raost an unnatural, corapounded, theological
language prevailed, and in the rest the raost shameful reck
lessness." Finally, Herder was also active in the arrange
ment of a serainary for teachers in Weiraar, and it will raost
likely not be without interest for our tiraes, in which so
much is said about pubhc schools, and reforms in thera, to
hear the views of a man whom probably no one has ever
numbered among the blockheads.
" The object of a seminary is not to give young persons,
who want to prepare themselves to becorae country school
masters, a useless kind of enlightenment, with which they
wiU think themselves overwise, and with which they will
sooner be of disadvantage than benefit to their future pupils ;
for too rauch clearness and arguraent spread carelessly among
ranks of society, in which they do not belong, promoter
neither the welfare of the State nor the happiness of the indi
vidual, but chiefly not of the private life of the poorer c'ass,
StiU less is its object to procure young persons a comfortable
hving, etc. It is rather its only object, far from all the

212 i:\niAXUEL kant.
ostentation and pedagogical plaything,? of our age, to give
young persons, who devote themselves to the profession of
teaching, a convenient opportunity of learning from instmc
tion and personal application what is ncce,?,%vry and really
useful for tlieir future caUing, for the best ability of a teacher
is only acquired by method and exercise"
Herder, the great proclairaer of humanity, was far removed
from all the effeminateness of the so-called philanthropinism.
kiciKHil discipline he regarded as a necessary requirement ofa
good school. A great number cannot exist together without
order, without a strict arrangement and regulation. " A
school which has much discipline, many and strict exercises
in good, and all kinds of good, to which children are to be
trained, tbat is a good school, A gyranasium -which daily
becomes a wrestling place, both in virtues and abilities for
noble young souls, which wrestle and practice diligently, and
with emulation, that only is a true and a good gymnasium.
Wheie there is not this discipline, this good exercise in scienc
and morals, there is a dead sea, though in and around it dwe
all the Muses."

XV.
IMMANUEL KANT.

SKETCH OF HIS LIFE,-  " CEITIQUE OF THE PUEE REASON. —
POSITION OF THIS PHILOSOPHY IN REFERENCE TO CHRISTI
ANITY.  THE RAPID INCREASE OF KANTISM.  HERDER'S
POSITION IN REFERENCE TO THE KANTIAN PHILOSOPHY.
Immanuel Kant, son of a saddler, was born April 22, 1724-,
at Konigsberg, and i-e ceived frora his parents a strict, and,
especially from his mother, a pious Christian training. Kant
expresses hiraself thus in reference to his raother :^ "She was
an affectionate, tender, pious, and upright woman, who led
her children to the fear of God by pious instruction aud a
' Jachm.ann's "Life of K.int," p, 9D.

IMMANUEL KANT. 213
virtuous example. She often took me out of tlie city, and
directed my attention to the works of God, expressed herself
enthusiastically in reference to His omnipotence, wisdora, and
goodness, and infused into my heart a deep reverence for the
Creator of all things. I shall never forget ray raother, for she
planted and nourished in rae the first gerra of the good, she
opened ray heart to the irapressions of nature, she awakened
and expanded my conceptions, and her teachings have had a
lasting and salutary infiuence on my life.'' According to some,
his raother connected herself with the existing pietisra, which
also Pastor Schultz, one of the first teachers of Kant, embraced.
At aU events, that strictly raoral conscientiousness, for which
the system of Kant, in spite of all its deficiencies, is distin
guished ; raay have had its root as rauch in these first impres
sions of his training, as in the later order of the thoughts of
the raan. The father had always insisted on truthfulness, and
had regarded lying a sin worthy of death, and this likely
influenced Kant in forming the strictest view of the value of
the truth. It was the raother, however, who besides truth
fulness also deraanded holiness, and thus (as Kant's bio
grapher remarks) the requirement of his practical reason,
to be holy, was perhaps very early made of bim by his good
mother.^ On the advice of the pious preacher and director of the
gymnasium, Schultz, the parents perraitted their son to study,
and Schultz assisted them nobly in this matter. Kant soon
displayed an extraordinary meraory. He knew large portions
of the classics by heart, and also made considerable progress
in mathematics. In 1740 he entered the university of his
native city. It was intended that he should devote himself
to theology, on which he actually heard several courses of lec
tures ; but his course of life soon took another turn. He
occupied the post of family tutor in the country for a time ;
but this neither suited his talents nor inclination. He was
utterly incapable of letting hiraself down to the conceptions
of the children, and afterwards was accustoraed to remark,
that a worse tutor than he was could perhaps not have been
found in the world. He used this quiet stay in the country
so much the raore for his studies, and here afready the basis
1 Borowsld, '¦ Life of Kant," p. 23.

214 IMMxVNUEL KAXT,
of his later system was laid in his mind. He had not yet
abandoned theology entirely, he even preached several times
in country churches, but soon abandoned the pulpit and all
ministerial labours, and turned hiraself to the academical
course of life. Having returned to his native city, he took
the degree of raaster of arts in 17-55, and began to deliver
lectures on philosophy. For fifteen years he continued in the
precarious position of a lecturing master of arts, till in 1770
he becarae professor in oidinary of matheraatics, which he
soon, however, changed for logic and raetaphysics. Long
before this he had already distinguished himself as an author,
mostly in the departraent of the practical natural sciences ; and
in philosophy, too, he had already struck out his own course,
deviating from the prevailing raethod of Woff. In 1787 he
became a raember of the Royal Academy of Berlin ; other dis
tinctions were less frequently conferred on hira than on many
other learned men of his day ; nor did he place any special
value on them. His life, in general, was very simple, and
in outward events was very meagre. He had never made
long journeys ; had never been more than thirty miles from
Konigsberg ; was acquainted with no large city but this ;
he never visited even the neis-hbouring Danzi"-. He was
never married ; saw even his nearest relations, his brothers
aud sisters, but seldom ; gathered around hira only a few
select and tried friends ; he lived with his man-servant ac
cording to a strict, orderly disposition of his time and domestic
affaus, from which he did not easily deviate. He showed
but Uttle taste for the polite arts. He neither paid attention
to portraits and engravings, nor loved music. He even con
sidered rausic an injurious amuseraent. He thought it
would be better for young ladies to take lessons in the art
of cooking, than in music and dancing. On the art of
cooking the great phUosopher placed a high estimation. He
preferred conversing on this subject with women, and avoided
philosophical conversations with thera. He was fond of
orabre, and in social circles manifested a cheerfulness and
versatility elevated above all pedantry. Toward the close of
his life his raental powers decreased perceptibly. The mar,
who had given the thinking world new laws, sunk into a kind
of irabecility, so that he could not even write his name

IMMANUEL KANT. 215
properly. He resigned his professorship in 1794, and died on
the 12th of February 1804. His lean body was at the time
of his death dried up like a potsherd ; his ingenious, blue eye,
which had aniraated his unimposing form, was extinguished.
The lifeless body was interred in the vault of the University
Church. As far as his character is concerned, his honesty, veracity, •
and high sense of what is becoming, are to be praised. Although
he gathered a considerable fortune during his single and siraple
mode of life, yet he did not set his heart on earthly riches.
An eneray to all idleness and begging, he was beneficent to
the worthy poor. He seldom attended public worship, as he
considered it, according to his whole raode of thinking, a raere
incitement to raorality. He, the educated man, believed that
he no longer stood in need of it, while he insisted that the
unthinking masses, who do not educate themselves, should
make use of the institution of the Church. He therefore still
esteeraed all religious institutions ; and with all his liberal
views of governraent, he still reraained a conscientious friend
of public order, and abhorred all that is violently revolutionary.
We shall estiraate his religious convictions more fully in con
nection with his system. Only this rauch here. "Gentle
men !" he said once, " I do not fear death, I shall know how
to die. I assure you before God, that if I felt this night that
I would die, I would raise ray hands, fold them and say : God
be praised '"^ When unreasonable admirers of Kant placed
him on a level with Christ, he opposed this idolatry, and con
fessed that he bowed reverently before Ihis narae, and regarded
himself, placed beside Him, as a bungler interpreting Him
according to his best powers.^
We raust now endeavour to unfold the systera of "Kant,
which is, of course, of more importance than those character
istics to which we have just alluded, and we feel the diffi
culty of the task, which is so rauch the greater, since even
Kant hiraself despaired of ever raaking his doctrines popu
lar, and always avoided introducing thera into circles of
educated women. I believe, however, that a development
of his system would not only be unnecessary, but even ira-
' -Wasianski, " Life of Kant," p. 52.
2 "Vorowski, " Life of Kant," p. 86, note.

216 IMMANUEL KANT.
proper in this place, and therefore I shall content my.self
with imparting the results of his system in so far as they
relate to a moral and religious life ; for only these results have
exerted an influence on the development of that which be-
long-s to the Church, and on the forraation of the Protestant
faith in other individuals.
Though till then the theologians and philosophers of all
confessions had speculated upon, and discussed at a venture,
divine and human things, and, frora premises generaUy received,
had drawn conclusions, about which they disputed the more
warmly the more each one believed that he had the truth,
still Kant bore no lance in this war. While these men were
fighting with each other, he went circumspectly around the
lists, and first examined the field of battle, to see whether the
ground was solid — ^reviewed the weapons to see whether they
were fit to cut and stab, and asked how far the darts would
reach, and how deep the swords would cut. He subjected
(according to the exaraple of the English philosopher, David
Hume) the intellectual powers to a new investigation, in ask
ing himself the question. What am man know ? How far
does the power of his reason extend ? To what regions does
she bear hira safely ? How far may he trust himself to her
guidance ?
In his work entitled, " Critique of pure Reason," he chiefly
carries on those investigations which lead to this result, that
nothing that lies outside of time and space, outside of the
forms of our sentient faculties of perception, can be an object
for pure thinking. As once, in the visible world, the discovery
that our earth is not the centre of the universe, around which
the sun and stars revolve, but itself only a small point in the
universe which, like all others of its kind, revolves around its
sun, was followed by a not insignificant hurailiation on the
part of man ; so it was also with this discovery in the realm
of the invisible world, the kingdora of thought. It now be
came necessary to fold the wings of speculation, whidi till
then had been spread out above the heavens; to recall the.
active forces which had been employed in all directions, to
muster them, to accumulate and concentrate the entire force
on the one clearly iUuminated point, on that, namely, which
Ues within the region of thought. And who will deny that

IMMANUEL KANT. 2 1 7
in this self-knowledge and self-limitation of reason there was
raore clear gain, than in all the supposed conquests in a
territory which raan could not call his so long as the limits
were as indefinite as they had been till that time. What is
certain and proved appeared in every respect preferable to the
uncertain and the visionary. It is true this discovery of
Kant could not be raised to raathematical certainty, as the
earlier discover}- of his countryman, Copernicus, since it could
be foUowed by no extemal apparatus, and no other glasses
could be used, except those which had been ground by the
Kantian critique, by the categories which had been set up by
him. The fact that the mind was directed to itself, to the
examination of its own powers, was of great importance. The
old inscription on the teraple of wisdora, " Knoiv thyself,"
was as it were revived, and shone like an admonishing- pillar
of fire through the darkness in which so raany philosophers
of ancient and modern times had been groping. On this
account raany have called Kant the second Socrates, whose
not knowing reached farther than all the knowledge of the
sophists. All the scholastic edifices of a reason, appeared to
be shaken to their foundations by Kant's critique, . and in
considering the history of Protestantisra, we cannot avoid
seeing in Kant's critique something Protestant, in so far as
it opposed the pretensions of reason, or rather the preten
sions of the understanding, which had placed itself beside
genuine reason, with the same resoluteness with which at
one time the Reformers opposed the old scholasticisra. It
is a pity, however, that after the new scholasticisra had
heen overthrown with the old, a newer one and then the
newest soon took its place, and that instead of real individual
thinking, the swearing on the master's word, the repeating
of forras not coraprehended, became worse after the tirae of
Kant than it had ever been before. But let us hear hira
self first, and consider his philosophy and its application to
religiou. When Kant designates that as object of pure thinhing
which is contained in space and time, he does not raean by
thia, that aU that is outside of these does not exist, that be
yond time and space there is nothing infinite, eternal, which
would certainly be a glooray philoaophy, banishing man en-

218 IMMANUEL KANT.
tirely into the finite. No ; he only does not want the eternal
things to beconie objects of huinan inve&tiL;ation and learned
proof, and thus he leaves faith, as faitli, essentiaUy untouched,
even if he avoids the expression, faith, because he has no
place for it iu his systera. Kant consequently denotes God
a-.id i nr ino ft id iiy not articles of faith, but requirements ofthe
practiced reason, which he distinguishes frora the pure or
Iheiireticcd reason. God and immortality cannot be proved in
a strict sense, but starting fi-ora the pi-actical-moral stand
point, man is led to both. That of which raan is certain, also
within the limit,? of time and space, is bis moral nature, hi.s
moral freedora, his iviU. Now in this self-determining will,
the warrant of man's immortality lies, and also the evidence
that a God exists, a Rewarder of the good and evil. Man, a
free, raoral being, has in him the caUing to live in accordance
with his moral nature, even in the case in which his natural
inclination to corafort aud bappiiness coraes in conflict with
the feeling of duty. This raoral urging, which the uneducated
Christian would simply call coiLScience, Kant called rather
imposingly the caleijurieal imperative} Tbis man has to
follow unconditionally ; he is to do the good purely for the
sake of the good, not with a view of reward or fear of pun
ishment in this or the other world. By this morahty would
be degraded to means, whereas it is intended to be the end.
We have already said that Kant did not deny immortahty
and retribution in another world. On the contrary, he de
manded the latter frora the standpoint of practical reason,
and even founded on it his faith in God and immortality ; for
since the striving of man for morality often comes in conflict
with his natural inclination for happiness, there must most
likely be a compensation beyond this world, there must be
an all-wise, all-righteous, all-benevolent Being who can and
will effectuate this compensation.
But however clear this is to the practical reason, the theo
retical reason must inexorably demand the fulfilment of the
moral law, even supposing the case that no compensation
would take place. Man, under all conditions, must act in a
' He distinguishes the categorical imperative, from which no one can honour
ably free himself, from the hypothetical, the inclination of a person, and the
principles, from mere maxims.

IMMANUEL KANT._ 2 ] 9
manner worthy of a free moral being, and whatever he lays
down as a law for .others must be the same to himself Our
morality raust not be made dejiendent on promises and threats,
its worth must be in itself Kant, therefore, did not want to
reject religion as something superfluous, but he certainly
vyanted to emancipate moraUty from it, and to place it on an
independent footing. The truly moral man ought not to
need religion as a support, nor ought he to permit himself to
be led by the religious, but only by purelj' raoral raotives.
If now these religious raotives were in reality nothing- else
than hope of reward and fear of punishraent (even if the
punishraent and reward weie eternal), then Kant was per
fectly right in desiring to raake moraUty independent of
these ; for Christianity also teaches us to do good not for the
sake of reward, and to shun evil not from fear of punishment.
It does not want the servile spirit of calculation and fear, but
the free spirit of sonship. But of this filial spirit nothing is
heard in the Kantian system. The categorical imperative is
certainly not that spirit of sonship in which we cry, Abba
Father. It is, and remains, even if not an external arbi
trarily given law, still always a law, a raere " Tliou shalt,'' a
commandraent of iron necessity. The Kantian doctrine, in
deed, leads us to the idea, to which the Apostle Paul also
leads man, that there is one law in our reason and another in
¦ our members which wars against the law of our reason ; but
to the cry, " 0, wretched man that I ara ! who shall deliver
me frora the body of this death ? " no reply coraes to the
free man frora the systera, except this, " Physician, heal thy-
seff" Kant was certainly right in being unwilUng to raake religion
the prop of raorality, if by this we mean raerely an outward
prop, a support for the morally weak. This is not only op
posed to the dignity of raoraUty, but also to that of religion,
which does not want to serve as raere raeans to outward ends,
not as a buo bear and scarecrow for the v\-icked, nor as bait for
the covetous. But there is a great difference between an
outward prop, against which the tree miserably supports
itself, and the root, frora which it draws its nourishing sap
and receives the irapulse to grow, and frora which it shoots
forth with vigorous life. That religion is this root, and that

220 IMM.VNUEL KANT.
frora it raorality draws its purest sources of life, is a view
which the Kantian doctrine lacks. That the raere external
performance of works does not justify man, and gives hini no
claira to salvation, and that conformity to luivs is not con
formity to morah (legality not yet raorality) has been proved
adrairably by Kant. In this he stands altogether ou the
foundation of Christianity in opposition to legal Judaism, and
on that of evangeUcal Protestantisra in opposition to the holi
ness of good works of the Eomish Church, and of many of the
later so-called moral philosophers who regarded happiness as
the highest aim of raan (Eudaeraonisni). In this respect he
has done very much. But when we inquire further after the
source of raorality, after the essential force and fundamental
impulse of all virtue, he points man to him^elf, The hfe-
producing grace, the Spirit of God imparting himself to man,
elevating and supporting him, these are objects for Kant
which find no place either in his theoretical or practical
reason. That fresh, free life of fixith, which overcame the
world in the days of the apostles, and which manifested itself
again in the time of the Reforraation, in Luther, could not, of
course, breathe under the air-pump of the categorical impera
tive. Whatever heaven has awakened and nourished of the
heavenly among raen, is resolved here into the process of
rational action, working according to unchangeable laws, and
one is led to think of the image used by Herder, of an
automaton that moves its limbs according to the tact, as if
by coramand, which, however, lacks the soul with the spark
divine.
, Kant indeed recognizes a God, a real, self-conscious, per
sonal God, not a mere raundane soul. But this God is, in
reality, too extramundane, too much beyond this world ; it
appears alraost as if He existed merely for the sake of future
retribution, and waited tiU then as an inactive observer of
huraan actions. The Kantian God is indeed the strict Judge
who holds the balance on the day of judgment, but it is not
' He who gives our actions their weight. He is really like the
man in the gospel who reaps where he has not sown, who
demands, and inexorably deraands, without giving the power
to coraply with these deraands ; for even supposing that there
are individuals who go as far in rational self-esteem and self-

IMMANUEL KANT. ' 221
victory, as the wise raan demands, then these individuals will
wrap theraselves up raore closely in the philosopher's cloak of
their own righteousness, and elevate themselves in moral
haughtiness above the masses, while the raajority, when they
gaze up to the dizzy height, despair of ever reaching it, and,
seized by raoral discouragement, sink to ruin. And yet Kant
lays this requfrement on all, demands it with seriousness, and
in this seriousness with which he demands morality of man,
and according to which alone he values the true worth of
man, there is something grand and reverential. If later
philosophers appear to deterraine the worth of raan according
to the araount of his thinking, when the intellectuality, the
dialectic dexterity and activity of man, his geniality, is valued
more than anything else, then it is affecting to observe in
Kant, in opposition to these, that he did not place the happi
ness of the future life in intercourse with great minds like
himself, but in the intercourse with honest souls, among
whom his servant Lampe, with his liraited knowledge, would
also be welcorae to hira.^ In this there is something ex
tremely hurable and truly Chiistian. Such an expression
would also have pleased Luther.
If now, we inquire further into the attitude the Kantian
doctrines assumed in reference to Christianity, it might be asked,
whether the conviction of an ignorance of divine things, of the
weakness of our reason, ought not to have led directly to the
reception of a revelation ! It might be ,saiJ to Kant, "for
the very reason that raan cannot apprehend the divine with
his reason, as thou thyself hast shown, we ought to thank God
doubly when he has revealed to us what we could not dis
cover ourselves," This conclusion, certainly bordering closely
on his systera, has really been drawn by several Kantians in
order to bring their philosophical systera into harraony with
faith in revelation, but not by Kant himself; for the very
notion of a supernatural revelatipn, frora which these set out,
belonged, according to hira, to those things of which reason
knows nothing. Whence, thus he asked quite consistently
with his presuppositions, whence shall the huraan raind Imow
that that which announces itself as a revelation is really such ?
which are the certain signs (criteria) by which he can recog-
' Jachmann, p. 123.

222 IMMANUEL KANT.
nisb such a revelation, by whicii he is to distinguish the true
from the false I Where are the boundaries of the natural and
supernatural? where does a rairacle begin? where does nature
cease to be nature ? For all these questions reason has no
decisive answer, and therefore Kant decided nothing. The
^jossihility ofa revelation and miracle can, according to him,
be neither proved nor denied by sound reasoning. But, for
this very reason, the essence of religion cannot depend upon
the reception or rejection of these. Since all depends on the
moral, therefore, according to Kant, the moral contents of a
systera of religious doctrines are the raeasure of its truth and
the criteriura of every revelation ; and of all existing rehgions
Christianity corresponds raost perfectly with the moral re
quirements of reason, and contributes most to promote morality
outwardly, this Kant acknowledged, being fully convinced of
the fact. And he did not present the doctrines of Christianity
in so onesided a manner as many of his followers ; its histo
rical proofs, also, had a value for hira. So it Mas with the
person of Christ. It is weU, he thought, that the mass of
raankind have an ideal in the historical Redeemer, in which
ideal pure morality appears realized, and to which they can
adhere ; it is well that, in the ecclesiastical communion, an in
stitution is given which makes that accessible to the mass
v\ hich the wise raan could, of course, without this, draw from
reason. The idea of a kingdom of God on earth, that is,
according to the Kantian interpretation, a raoral confederation of
men for the attainraent of the highest raoral ends, was esti
mated highly by hira, only he thought that the priesthood,
and whatever is stationary in religion, ought to be distin
guished carefully from its essence.
Whilst a Voltaire scoffed at the Bible, the profounder phi
losopher Kant recognised in it an excellent means for the
proraotion of moral truth. The preacher, the teacher of the
people, ought to raake this book as useful as possible. He
should, however, be less concerned (Kant thinks) to establish
the original raeaning of the Holy Scriptures (which he may
leave for learned theologians) than to ex])lain the Holy Scrip
tures according to the actual wants of his hearers, even at tbe
risk of drawing frora it soraething different from what -nas
originaUy intended. This was certainly a dangerous principle,

IMMANUEL KANT. 223
leading to the most arbitrary use of the Bible, and which per
mitted anything to be made of everything, provided only that
in it a raoral advantage appeared,
Kant had this in comraon wit^h Lessing, that, in opposition
to the neology of the time, which rejected all, he discovered,
even in the old dograatics of the church, a kernel of deep
truth, which he recoramended to be used wisely. He, there
fore, sought to bring to houour again certain church dograas
which had afready been cast overboard, not only because re
garded as opposed to reason, but also to Scripture. So it was
with the doctrine of original sin. Kant was too well ac
quainted with the huraan heart to becorae fanatical like Rous
seau. He could not reconcile hiraself to the view that
man, according to nature, is good and innocent. Man is,
according to Kant, rather an egoistic being, concerned only
for seff-interest and his own welfare. This he called the
radical evil. The good is not innate in raan, he raust be
trained and educated for it before he possesses it : but, of
course, the Kantian and church doctrines here separate again,
since, according to Kant, raan must finally becorae, through
man, what according to Scripture, and the doctrines _ of the
church, is accoraplished by God.
If, now, we sura up the foregoing, we can say : Chri.'^t,
Christianity, Bible, Church, and Church doct rines were notto
him empty sounds, not what they were to the common deists,
objects of conterapt and scorn; no, they remained to Kant objects
of reverence, at least objects worthy of earnest reflection and
the most careful investigation. He, the master, did not decide
speedUy what raany of his disciples afterwards decided hastily.
He did not want to burden his conscience with the fact that
he had torn from the heart of the people that which serves as
the props of its raorality. He regarded these props as re
maining, but, of course, merely as props, as crutches for
the weak, as temporary levers for those who cannot raise
themselves. The religion of the Bible and of Christianit}^
had not come to Ufe in hira ; and what was not living
in himself how could he impart it to others ? Let us
honour this, however, that he did not take it from thera, at
least not intentionaUy. Of course, he could not prevent it,
that his disciples reraoved that which the raaster had per-

224 IMMANUEL KANT.
raitted to remain. Even, if it may be doubted, that one
of the greatest disciples of Kant, Fichte, raade use of the ex
pression, that Christianity would have outlived itself in five
years,^ still there was no lack of similar expressions on the
part of others. If the raore raoderate adrairers were satisfied
in placing their raaster on a level with Socrates, the infatuated
raised him above Christ, or they applied to hira the language
of creation. God said : " Let there be light, and there was" —
the Kantian philosophy.^ We have already seen how Kant
refused this idolatry. He, like all truly great men, had not
aimed at bringing up a host of adrairers to repeat his own
sentiments, but to inspire the raind with new impulses. At
different tiraes he had repeated in his lectures the sentiment
that he did not want to teach his auditors philosophy, but
how to philosophize; he did not, therefore, want to deliver a
finished systera into their hands, but to e.Kcrcise their minds
in thinking, and to render thera capable of discovering the
truth themselves. But how could he govern the stream
which was, with continually increasing force, overflowing its
banks ? It raay appear strange that a system, apparently dry
and abstract, like the Kantian, a systera which, perhaps,
scarcely one in a hundred understood, should, notwithstanding
this, have received so many adherents. It was nevertheless
so. The Kantian systera, or the critical philosophy as it was
called, was too soon raised as a party standard, around which
theologians, jurists, pedagogues, and physicians flocked. A
proof this, that the ideas suggested by Kant were lying in
the age ; that the sarae, which he presented in a strictly scien
tific forra, was glimmering in an indefinite manner in the
minds of men, and that but the spell of a system was needed
to call up the spirits who, without this spell, would have re
mained in the dark. But, just as everything has its limits and
its opposition, so it was, too, witb the Kantian philosophy; and
the man, to whora we have already called your attention.
Herder, we shall next see as one of its raost ingenious and
raost powerful opponents.
We have already seen that the Kantian system produced a
• Fichte's son, at least, contradicts this saying mentioned by G. Miiller in tne
"Life of Herder."
2 This is mentioned by the younger Fichte in the life of his father.

IMMANUEL KANT. 22,5
revolution, not only in the German phUosophical world, but
also in the wider field of science, that it exerted a decided in
fluence on reUgious thinking, on art, morality, politics, educa
tion, &c., &c. ; and, though we could not avoid remarking
that the desire to keep up -with the spirit of the age, and the
longing for something new and peculiar, assisted to increase
the number of his followers ; stiU it would be unjust to feign
to be ignorant of the great impulse given to the mind by
Kant through his philosophy. A philosophy which could gain
over to it, and altogether fetter for a while, though it could
not satisfy them very long, such young raen as SchiUer and
Fichte ; which govemed the minds more than half a century,
whose traces may even yet be seen in a large class of educated
and half-educated men, though it has at present but few, fol
lowers araong philosophers, such a philosophy cannot well be
regarded as soraething accidental ; it has a great historical
importance, and on this account, ought to be raentioned
vrith respect. In his Critique, Kant has given the think
ing mind, which flnds its representatives in the Gerraan
nation more than in any other, a task on which the deep
thinkers — the philosophers — are to this day exerting their
powers. It is not yet fuUy determined what his philosophy
has accomplished, wherein its truth, wherein its enor consists ;
and it is not our duty to form a judgment in reference to this
matter, much less to give one. It is sufficient for us to recog
nise the great, the signiflcant, wherever we meet it ; and
though we have found that the position which this philosophy
took in the development of Protestantism was onesided, that
in several respecte it departed from the principal root of
Christianity, we only design this as a judgraent of this posi
tion and relation, which alone concern us; not of the system
itself, which we have only conteraplated in fragraents.
It however belongs to our historical task to conteraplate
the enthusiastic reception which Kant raet with frora some
of his contemporaries, as weU as the opposition frora others.
We cannot give a special history of the dispute here. It
may, however, be presupposed, that as there was a nuraber
of mad foUowers, so also there would be no lack of senseless
objections, of reviling, and suspicions of a low order. Many,
P

226 IMMANUEL KANT.
whose paper houses of ingenious arguraents Kant had some
what roughly blown down, were naturally incensed against
him ; even the great raass of the " illuminati " who had
heretofore followed a broad, limitless mode of argumentation,
were dissatisfied with Kant, for however ranch his system
was calculated to promote that which had long been the
aim of neology (a liraiting of the religious to the moral, etc.),
still the severe discipline which Kant introduced by his criti
cal raethod was uncorafortable to raany, and it raight also
grieve the vain araong them that their naraes were obscured
by his. But it is true that besides these comraon bawlers
other voices were raised against the Kantian system, which
differ entirely from the others by their weight, their influence,
and their entire tone.
We have raentioned Herder as an opponent of Kant,
and now we shall be able, as intiraated before, to measure
another raagnitude with his. Before, however, we consider
the points of difference between these two raen, let us turn to
what they have in comraon. It is not only the common
native country (both were Prussians), not onlj'- the distin
guished name in a reraarkable age which places them in an
intimate relation to each other, but also their Protestantism,
their acute, critical rainds. Both were Protestant spirits,
both men of progress, of free development ; both felt an im
pulse for something new, soraething better ; both wanted to
elevate raan above the limited views given hira by birth, edu
cation, and custora, to a conteraplation of self, to a conscious
ness of the dignity of his spirit, to the possession and enjoy
ment of his humanity in the noblest sense of the word. Man
as raan, regarded purely as a human being, was the great
subject of each, and it is remarkable that the word "humanity,"
so frequently used by Herder, also becarae the watchword of
Kant. When the strength of his raind and body had already
been considerably weakened, when he roused himself just
before his close, Kant reraarked, " The feeling for humanity
has not yet left me."
It may be expected from his kindly feeling that Herder, as
Kant's junior and former scholar, retained the personal regard
for him, which he bad for all great men of his own and other
ages. Otherwise he would have been false to his own prin-

IMSLiNUEl4 KANT. 227
ciple, when he says, " A scholar who persecutes his teacher
bears Neraesis on his back, and the sign of reprobation on his
forehead." In the life of Herder we have afready seen that
he esteeraed Kant personally. He also knew how to do jus
tice to Kant's systera, and its iraportance to the age. He
even defended it against unjust charges and false sequences
drawn frora it. " It is false, altogether false," he says, " that
his philosophy abstracts frora experience, since it rather refers
to experience wherever this takes place  It is
false that he loves a philosophy which, without a knowledge
of the other science, is eternaUy threshing erapty straw ; who
ever does this does not belong to his class." Herder opposed
those one-sided adrairers of Kant, who, instead of taking his
Critique as a " fan which separates the chaff of philosophical
thinking frora the wheat, regarded it as the contents of
human thinking, and of knowledge generally." " If," says
Herder, quite Protestantly, " the sketch is taken for the thing
itself, the frarae for the picture, the vessel, whose grooves he
exposed, for the contents of the vessel, and it is tben believed
that all the treasures of knowledge are gathered, what a mis
take 1 What an abuse ! ' ! " . . . . " The intolerance
with which the Kantians spoke, condemned, praised, rejected,
has been as much despised by the sound part of Germany
as it raust have been displeasing to the tolerant spirit
and great love of truth of the author of this philosophy.''
. . . . " Kant's own works," says Herder, prophetically,
" wiU reraain. Their spirit, even ff raoulded into other forms,
wiU continue to live and to exert an influence. It has already
done rauch, its traces are seen in alraost every branch of human
investigation. A new impulse was given by Kant not only
to sfft the old, but also to arrange in a strict, logical order
the sciences properly human, the science of morality, of natural
and political right. These attempts are very beneficial,
they will influence action, and, if God grants it, wUl them
selves become received maxims." " It would have been very
fine and useful," says Herder in his "Letters on Humanitj',"^
' "Works on Philosophy and History," xi., p. 188, where a beautiful repre
sentation of Kant is also given : " I have been so fortunate as to know a philo
sopher who was also my teacher. In the prime of life he had the vivacity of a
youth, which I think will follow him to the end of his days. His open, thought-

228 IMMANUEL KANT.
" if the pure object of Kant had been understood and
adopted by all his foUowers. The salt with which he haa
sharpened and purified our understanding and reason, the
power with which he rouses the raoral law of freedom in us,
must produce good fruits." " But," he says in another place,
" whilst the Kantian philosophy is to be regarded as a fer
ment, stupidity took the leaven for the dough, and hence this
inexpUcable confusion."
Herder thought it would be a praiseworthy undertaking to
collect the principal propositions of Kant's writings, in order
to compare them with what had been possessed by phUo
sophy before Kant, and thus to obtain a definite idea of what
new ideas he had really advanced, for only blind Kantians
could assert that aU was new. Justice, huraanity, he thought,
demanded such an undertaking. Kant's real merit was not
to be taken from him, but he was opposed to the one-sided
elevation of this at the expense of that of others.
Herder must have been particularly prejudiced against the
universal prevalence of the Kantian philosophy, which was
now also beginning to prevaU in theology, from what he
experienced at the examinations of candidates in Weimar.
Herder's biographer, J. G. MiUIer, relates, that "young
theologians carae to Weiraar to make their examina
tion, whose ignorance, anogance, and irapudent answers
both provoked and pained Herder. A young theologian
of Weiraar had shot himself, before or after the examiner
tion, owing to the despondency arising from the fa«t
that he had been disappointed in his studies. Another
talented youth wrote an essay against raatriraony, and at the
sarae tirae requested, with pressing urgency, a pastoral charge

fill brow was the seat of undisturbed serenity and joy; his speech was fertile in
ideas : humour, wit, and pleasantry were at his command, and his instructive
discourse was very interesting  The history of man and of nations,
natural history and natural philosophy, mathematics and experience, were the
sources whence he drew the material to animate his lectures and conversation;
he was indifferent to nothing really worth knowing ; no cabal, no soul, no advan
tage, no ambition, ever had the least power to influence him against the spread
and illumination of truth. He encouraged and gently forced persons to refleo-
tion. Despotism was foreign to his mind. This man, whose name I mention
with the highest regard, is Immanuel Kant ; I hold his image before my mind
with pleasure," etc.

IMMANUEL KANT. 229
of the high consistory. An unrestrained anogance, with a
conterapt for all that is venerable, spread araong the youth,
so that the raost sacred ties of nature were disregarded ; they
scoffed at the love of parents and children, of husband and
-wife . . . said that we are not obliged to keep our
proraises, and that religion, especiaUy the Christian, is super
stition. All this new wisdom was boldly expressed, and
found powerful advocates. This grieved Herder. He was
grieved, too, on Kant's account, for the indignation against
the fooUsh veneration was finally transfened to the person
venerated. He thought it little in Kant that he did not
check this mischief, as he certainly knew what abuse was
made of his teachings. It is said that Kant himself re
marked; that only one of his foUowei-s understood hira, the
court preacher, Schuiz, in Konigsberg.^ Herder, therefore,
thought hiraself in duty bound to oppose Kant's " Critique, '
in his " Metacritique.''
We cannot follow the dispute. It is a fact that Herder's
" Metacritique," as weU as his " Kalligone," which was also
directed against Kant, did not produce the desired effect, and
that neither of them belongs to the best of his writings. We
must acknowledge that Herder here ventured to enter a field
in which he was less at home than in theology, history, and
hterature. Speculative philosophy was not Herder's sphere.
The U-ving, poetical view prevaUed over his conceptions. He
himseff addresses the abstract philosopher thus : " If you
must peel the fmit on account of your weak stomach, you
may peel it, but do not suppose that I chew the peels of your
abstractions only. I eat the fruit with its beautiful colour, I
quaff the cup with its pleasant fragrance." So the poet
speaks, and we gladly agree -with him ; but it did not satisfy
those who want to peel with the critical knife. If these
phUosopbers regarded reason as an independent power, sepa
rated frora aU personal influences and circurastances of the
individual life ; if they thought that the general conception
stood higher than the individual, as he lives and raoves before
us, then Herder's living poetical disposition was repelled by
these raetaphysical abstractions. " Reason," he says, " is not
' A similar anecdote was related of Hegel shortly after his death.

230 BIMANUEL KANT.
primitive, pure potence, as the philosophers suppose, but i
ago-regate of observations and exercises of our soul, the su
of the education of our race, which the educated individus
'as a strange artist, finally corapletes in hiraself, according
given patterns. It is only by means of education that a mt
becoraes a man, and the entire race Uves only in the chain
the individuals. Genus and species are general conceptior
which are only real so far as they exist in the individuals
Herder, therefore, as we see, started frora the reahty of tl
individual in its connection with the class, frora the perce]
tion of the senses, frora experience, whilst Kant and tl
Kantians started from abstract conceptions, which they tbe
combined, like numbers in ciphering. Having thus differei
stand-points, a reconciliation of views was not an easy matte
And this difference between their stand-points was intimatel
connected with the different personahties of these two gre;
men. Herder was educated in life, Kant in the school. Th
was the great difference. Whilst for Herder the ship thi
canied hira frora Riga to Nantes becarae the cradle of h:
great ideas on the waves of the ocean, we find Kant nev(
leaving his native city. While Herder, like Luthe
loved rausic above all other things, and found a key in il
raysterious language to many things, which cannot 1
expressed in abstract conceptions, we know Kant's indifferenc
in reference to it, which, in a raan of his position, we ai
tempted to call stupidity. In other respects their ideas wei
also very different, in reference to the nature and object (
art. Kant was unwUling to let anything pass for poetr
unless it was in rhyrae, whilst Herder generaUy wrote blan
verses. Herder's prose, like Lavater's, was frequently con
sidered too poetical, and his poetry, on the other hand, some
tiraes dragged too rauch with prosaic sentences. Kant, ho-w
ever, deraanded (and not altogether unjustly) a clear distinc
tion between prose and poetry. He called a poetic prose on
that had gone raad.
But perhaps the greatest difference between the two mei
raay be traced to this, that Herder lived in the famUy witl
his whole soul, while the unraarried Kant was confined t
himself and a few friends. A faraUy can as Uttle live intel
lectually on abstract ideas, as physically on viewing empt;

SCHILLER 231
dishes. The daUy bread, which is intended to support, raust
be more nourishing than the raeagre fare afforded by the
phUosophical kitchen. Herder, like Luther, knew how to
give to his own family the bread of life which he broke unto
his congregation ; and as he felt himself chief priest, so, too,
he recognized with a true Lutheran heart the high significance
of a priest's wife. " The position of a true, noble wife, and
priest's wife," he says, "is (I say it without singularity or
selfishness) the most dignified, most beautiful on earth, and
with good children it may becorae a heavenly position." Kant,
who regarded the art of cooking as the greatest attainraent of
a woman, knew nothing of this bliss. He could not accommo
date himseff to the minds of chUdren, which he clearly proved
whilst tutor, but Herder knew how to talk with children in
a childlike manner. If we read, for instance, the letters which
Herder wrote to his children while on his Italian journey, we
are naturally led to think of Luther ; he can adapt himseff so
artlessly, so heartily to their capacities. But we have said
enough to shew how the personal difference of the two men
influenced their modes of philosophizing.

XVI.
SCHILLER
SCHILLER AND HIS RELATION TO CHRISTIANITY.  HIS
EELATION TO PROTESTANTISM.
We now corae to consider Schiller and Goethe, in whora, ,
according to the ideas of many, the national literature I
of Germany culminates. We think it best for our object <
to separate the two, and though Goethe was the older we
speak first of SchUler, since his influence on the thoughts
of the German nation manifested itseff earUer in a decided
manner, than that of Goethe. SchUler's views were also
intimately connected with Kant's phUosophy, whUst Goethe's '

232 SCHILLER.
significance for his age and even for ours can only be fully
understood in connection with the later phUosophical systems
— with ScheUing and Hegel.
It may appear strange that I take SchiUer as the represen
tative of the rationalism of his age, as it manifested itseff out
side of the church and outside of theological science, in lffe.
How, it will very properly be asked, if the nature of ration
alism, as we have seen, consists in a certain sterUity and diy-
ness of the understanding, how does it happen that the fiery,
iraaginative poet is placed here ? I raust, therefore, explain
rayseff raore clearly. I might first remark that I distinguish
the nobler rationalism, that of huraanity, from the trivial,
vulgar rationaUsra, which existed at the same time ; but this
explanation would not be sufficient ; for this nobler rational
ism, as far as we have learned to know it, had also, on the
whole, a certain insipidity of the understanding, which even
prevailed in the supporters of the opposite system, as in
Reinhard. Now SchiUer formed a decided contrast to this
insipidity of the understanding, and we really find tbat Rein
hard, for exaraple, could not at all chirae in with the brUUant
genius of SchiUer, but, araong other things, characterized his
poera on Joy as the effusion of a scorched brain. We must
therefore ask again, how does it happen that in spite of this
we place SchiUer in connection with rationalism ? Because,
I reply, with all his poetical form, which SchUler handled
with raasterly skiU, the contents of raany of his poems, and
even the whole aira of his Ufe, agreed with the rationalistic
tendency, and because he knew how to give rationalism by
means of his beautiful, inspiring language, that ideality, sought
for and desired in vain by so many, the very thing the dry
rationaUstic preachers lacked. We must here distinguish the
poetical genius of SchiUer, (which raised itseff far above the
level of a rationalistic mode of thinking, and which in different
circumstances would have been just as capable of losing itself
in the mystical regions of fanaticisra), frora his philosophical
education, frora the rehgious views which prevailed in him,
and which constitute the soul of raost of his poems, ff we
except a few productions of his youth, which bear the impress
of a raind stUl straggUng with a certain degree of indis
tinctness.

SCHILLER. 233
SchUler was (and this accounts for much) a disciple of Kant,
an advocate of the critical philosophy, and he did rauch to
spread the Kantian rationalisra, of course in a poetical dress,
into the hearts of the people. We do not blarae hira for this.
But, on the contrary, the world needed an irapulse to higher
Ufe, a raoral invigoration, soraething that would direct their
minds to the in-visible, that could not be touched with hands,
though this were only a poetic-philosophical ideal, in opposi
tion to the raaterialistic, frivolous tendencies, which had been
promoted to sorae extent by the school of Wieland. In oppo
sition to the selfish -view which raade vuiue the servant of
inordinate desires, the world needed a voice to advocate virtue
and to awaken enthusiasra in its behaff, to turn the eyes of
men from the dust of earth to the glory of heaven. And this
was done by SchiUer. Not to acknowledge this, and in some
respects with joy, were prejudice, were ingratitude, were at
least ignorance ; and it can only be regarded as a good indi
cation when men, decidedly Christian, like Albert Knapp in his
beautfful poem, have the courage to declare before believers
and infidels what the German nation owes to Schiller. We
can therefore agree with the festive sentiraents of the speaker,
who, on the occasion of unveiling the statue of SchUler in
Stuttgart, began with these words : " Lost in adrairation and
in reverential conteraplation, but also fUled with sincere joy,
we stand before the unveiled iraage of the sublirae poet,
the sagacious, popular teacher, the labourer on the build
ing of eternity, the favourite of the people, who is both our
pride and our love." If we plaee SchUler's iraage before our
minds, we can look with the same pleasure on that brow
" which reflected on the design and destiny of man," can hang
with ^e same deep adiniration on that kindling eye, on
those eloquent lips, whence flowed the riches of bewitching
song, without becoraing idolaters on this account, as persons
are soraetiraes charged.
But with aU this acknowledgraent and adrairation we can
not refuse an answer to the question, in what relation does
SchiUer stand to Christianity ? what position does he take in
the history of the developraent of Evangelical Protestantisra ?
Our task itself deraands this ; and only in this respect
have we a right to speak of hira here. Besides this,

234 SCHILLER.
the question has forced itself on the age, and the veneration
for the great poet, raanifested at the unveiling of his statue,
led to the discussion of this question. " Schiller and Chris
tianity" have become the theme variously treated by different
authors, and the speaker referred to above, Gustav Schwab,
also found it proper to give his views on this subject, and
to treat the matter fully, in his biography of the poet. Let
us attempt to form a judgment on this subject, by taking
these works into consideration as weU as the writings of
Schiller hiraself.
Schiller was born (Nov. 10, 1759) and educated in a land
in which Christianity still had a good foundation, in the king
dora of Wurteraberg. The sarae custom which we found in
the paternal home of Herder, that of morning and evening
prayers, we also flnd here. The father, as SchUler's sister
relates, regularly read the prayers morning and evening in the
faraily circle, and SchUler, while yet quite young, was very
attentive. And, in his school days, he never went to bed
without offering a silent evening prayer, for, hating all mere
outward form, he reraarked that " there was no necessity of
bawling." The songs of Paul Gerhard were favourites of his.
SchUler was soon transported frora his home to a hot-house,
which could not possibly be favourable to the rehgious deve
lopraent of the youth. Not that there was a lack of rehgious
exercises in the military school at Hohenheim, they were
indeed very abundant, but in the forra of mUitary exercises,
as an external work of the law and letter, as it had been the
case in the religious training of Frederick the Great. Fortu
nately tbe former influences of pious training did not faU to
leave their irapressions on SchUler ; he stiU loved to read the
Bible, especially the Psalras and Prophets ; he stUl more fre
quently poured out his soul in prayer, and even led devotional
exercises in society ; he stiU regarded religious poetry as the
highest, and his youthful fancy was already thinking of a
poera on Moses, to form a counterpart to Klopstock's Messiah.
At this tirae the rainistry was SchiUer's ideal, and he could
think of nothing raore sublime than to proclaim, from the
consecrated pulpit, the heavenly tmths to a people longing for
salvation. No one can read, without being affected, vrithout
the deepest sympathy, those thoughts of a Sunday moming

SCHILLER. 235
of 1777, which have been ha'nded down to us. Here already
doubt struggles with faith in a manner which can only fUl us
with respect for the love of truth that animated the youthful
thinker. " God of truth. Father of Ught ! I raise my eyes to Thee
with the first rays of raorning, and worship Thee. Thou
searchest rae, 0 God ! Thou seest the trerabling of the praying
heart, even when yet afar off; 0 then, Thou also knowest the
burning desire of ray soul for trath ! Thou knowest, 0 God !
that anxious doubt frequently enveloped my soul in night, ray
heart was often alarmed, and struggled for divine light frora
Thee. Then there often feU a blessed ray frora Thee into ray
benighted soul ; I saw the horrible abyss on the edge of which
I was already dizzy, and thanked the divine hand which
kindly drew rae back. Be Thou stUl with rae, ray God and
my Father ! for the days have corae in which fools arise and
say in their hearts, There is no God ! Thou, ray Creator,
hast reserved rae for troubled days ! for days in which super
stition raves on ray right and infidelity scoffs on ray left hand.
Then I stand and frequently waver in the storra ; and, alas !
the trembling reed would break, if Thou didst not support
me, mighty Sustainer of Thy creatures. Father of those who
seek Thee."
" What ara I vnthout Truth, without the guide through
Ufe's labyrinth ? A traveller lost in the woods, enveloped in
night, in which no fiiend, no guiding star shines upon his
way. Scepticisra, uncertainty, unbeUef, ye begin with anguish
and end in despair. But Truth, thou leadest us safely
through Ufe, bearest a light before us in the dark vaUey of
death, and bringest us to heaven whence thou caraest.
" 0 ray God ! keep ray heart in peace, in that holy stillness
in which the truth loves raost to visit us. The sun does not
reflect itself in the storray ocean, but in the calra, clear sur
face its countenance is beautifuUy minored. Do Thou also
keep this heart calm, so that it may be able to know Thee, 0
God ! and him whom Thou hast sent, Jesus Christ ; for this
only is truth which strengthens the heart and elevates the
soul. If I have trath, then I have Jesus ; if I have Jesus
then I have God ; if I have God, then I have aU. Shall I
permit myself to be robbed of this treasure, this sublime view,

336 SCHILLER.
by the wisdora of the world, which is foolishness in Thy
sight ? No ! let hira that hates the truth be my enemy ; but
hira who seeks it with a sincere heart I wUl embrace as a
brother." " The bell rings which suramons me to the teraple of God.
I hasten to confirra ray faith there, to becorae strong in the
truth, and to prepare rayself for death and eternity. Do
Thou guide rae, 0 my Father ! Open my heart to the truth,
that I may become strong enough to proclaira it to those who
are raine, then they will be happy. They wiU ;then know
that Thou art their God and Father, that Thou didst sent
Jesus Christ, thy Son, and the Spirit, to testffy to the truth.
Then they will have comfort for every grief in lffe, and the
blessed hope of immortaUty in the hour of death."
" Now, my God ! Thou mayest take aU things from me,
every earthly happiness that fiUs my heart, every charming
joy ; let rae but keep the truth, then I shall have happiness
and joy enough."
" If Thou, mercfful God ! wilt perrait rae to cry unto Thee
with this quaking heart, this trerabling tear in my eye, 0,
then, do Thou also look with corapassion on the erring ! Of
aU the raiserable on earth they need Thy help the most.
They cannot enjoy Thy sun nor the lovely raoon, for their
soul is night, and their heart is full of bitter struggles. 0 do
Thou pity their anguish ! Let them hear the voice of truth,
that they raay stop and trerable and retrace their steps, and
foUow the heavenly caU of this voice. Bring us all to that
place where no night, no error, no doubt can trouble our souls,
but where Ught and trath and certainty beara upon the blessed,
and where we shall know for ever that Thou art God our
Father, and that Jesus Christ is the reflection of Thy glory,
through whora Thou impartest every joy, every blessing."
" Preserve us, our Saviour, Jesus Christ ! who sittest on the
right hand of God; be Thou our shield and hiding-place!
Before Thee the host of scoffers is raere dust."
" Thou hast seen frora eternity how long their defiance shall
last and shall snort against Thee on earth ; perhaps their mea
sure wUl soon be fuU."
" Thou hast also redeeraed thera, O Lord ! whose mockery
now reviles Thee ! Grant that before the night of death they
may awaken to earnest repentance. Amen."

SCHILLER. 237
Schwab justly remarks that the poera, with which this , ,
prayer closes, raight stand in any orthodox hyran-book. The
scepticism nourished by the philosophy of Voltaire, with
whose writings SchUler became acquainted when only fifteen
years old, kept increasing continually ; but wherever this
doubt is expressed, it is " a doubt full of the holy earnestness
and depth of a soul thirsting for the truth," raore like that
of Rousseau than that of Voltafre. In the phUosophical letters
(Julius to Raphael), -written soraewhat later, Schiller's anguish
and doubt frequently found expression : " Blessed time, when
I stiU staggered through Ufe like a drunken raan, my eyes
being closed ! I felt, and was happy. Raphael taught me
to think, and I now regret that I was ever created. Thou
hast robbed me of that faith which gave me peace. Thou
hast taught me to despise what I worshipped. A thou
sand things were venerable to me before thy glooray wisdom
exposed them. I saw multitudes flocking to church, I heard
their fervent devotion expressing itself in united prayer.
Divine must be that doctrine, I exclairaed, which the best of
mankind profess, which conquers so raightily and coraforts so
wonderfuUy ! Thy cold reason quenched ray enthusiasra.
' BeUeve nothing but your reason,' you said, ' there is nothing
hoher than the truth.' I obeyed, sacrificed all my opinions.
My reason is everything to me now, my only assurance of
God, virtue and immortaUty. Woe to me, henceforth, if ever
1 find this only assurance contradicting itseff."
It was during this period of doubt and anxiety that
SchiUer published his " Robbers." But it is remarkable that
in this piece, which has many esthetic and raoral imperfec
tions, in the midst of the abortions of an unbridled fancy,
the firra old Wurteraberg faith in Christianity still appears as
the foil from which huraan depravity is reflected in its raost
honible forras. Or does it not appear strange that SchUler,
in his preface to this draraa, justifles the choice and raanage
raent of the materials by assuring us that he wanted to
represent the disposition that is just tuming away from reh
gion and Christianity ?
" It is now," he says, " the fashion to give wit free play at
the expense of religion, so that a person scarcely passes for
talented unless he lets his wicked satire make sport of its

238 SCHILLER.
holiest truths. The noble sirapUcity of the Bible is daily
abused by the so-called witty rainds and distorted into the
ridiculous ; for what is so serious and so holy that may not
be rendered ridiculous by distortion ? I hope that I do not
revenge religion and raorality only sUghtly, in delivering
these wilful despisers of the Bible to the conterapt of tbe
world, in the person of my basest robbers."^ On the
other hand, he gives the picture of a worthy, not strictly
orthodox, but Kantian-rationalistic minister in the same
piece, in the person of pastor Moser, a picture of what
the age perhaps regarded as the ideal of a preacher.^ It is
reraarkable that this, with slight exceptions, is the last
favourable representation of a rainister in the works of
Schiller. Alraost everywhere else we find a settled hatred of
priests, which could easily connect with itself a hatred of the
Church and all positive religion. We do not blarae him for
finding and attacking priestly dorainion in the Protestant
Church. There was, unfortunately, too rauch of this, and
it is related that the religious instructor of SchiUer while a
youth, is stiU decried by the people as a " Lutheran priest"
But that he frequently raade no distinction between positive
religion and priestly dorainion, — that in attacking the one he
also attacked and designed to attack the other, — this was
owing to the effect of that one-sided "illurainism" bitterly
reproached in his " Robbers," but into which he gradually
feU more and raore hiraseff.
It is never the insolent scoff of a Voltaire which our poet

1 This was really done by Schiller. After one of the robbers had ironically
Proposed to become a pietist and to hold devotional meetings, the other
ansiwers, " Capital ! and if that fails, turn atheist. "We might fall foul of the
four gospels, get our book burned by the hangman, and then it would sell at a
prodigious rate." And as Italy is praised as the land of thieves, Spiegelberg
utters these significant words : " Yes, yes, and if Germany goes on as it has
begun, and if the Bible gets fairly kicked out, of which there is every prospect,
Germany, too, may arrive at something respectable."
' The Kantian idea of retribution is the point to which Moser directs the
attention of Frank Moor. " The thought of God will wake up a terrible moni
tor, whose name is Judge. The diflferent destinies of mankind are balanced
with terrible nicety ; the sc.ile of life which sinks here will rise there, and that
which rises here will sink there. What was here temporary afiiiction, will there
be eternal triumph ; and what was here temporary triumph, will be there eternal
despair."

SCHILLER. 239
adopted, nor a low utilitarian and coraraonplace philosophy.
How would this have been possible with the ideal turn of
his raind ! Nor does he seek to free hiraself of the thought
of the supematural frora pure religion, for the purpose of
gi-ving himseff boldly to the enjoyment of earthly pleasures.
He says, I profess none of aU reUgions that may be raen
tioned, that is, none of the historical religions ; and his at
tacks are therefore chiefiy directed against the historical, the
positive, which he could not harraonize with his idealistic
notions of the nature of religion. " I raust acknowledge," he
writes to Goethe in 1797, "that I have so raany doubts in
reference to the historical in the Bible, that your doubts on a
single fact appear to me very raoderate. For rae, the Bible
is only true where it is artless ; in everything else, I fear a
design and a later origin." It is therefore the greater distrust
of aU that is historical, the supposition of an intentional de
ception on the part of the priesthood, or of sorae sirailar
invention, which injured his taste for the Bible. Only the
artless has still a charra for the poet, and even this was not
very great. For the sublimity of Scriptuial poetry, which
Herder appreciated so fully, Schiller raanifested little taste, or
it was raerely transient ; his ideals of beautjr were rooted
only in the Grecian world. No wonder, then, that he was
not attracted by Herder's personaUty, with which he was so
closely connected in Weiraar ?
But the farther SchiUer departed frora positive Christianity,
the more he becarae attached to the Kantian philosophy,
which he studied very diligently, and the results of which he
gave in his poetry. Marquis Posa, as is well known, is a
Kantian in the Spanish costuraes of the sixteenth century, and
the " Words of Faith "of 1797 preach to us the trinity of the
practical reason.^ Schiller gives a disclosure of his relation to
the Kantian philosophy in several of his letters. To his
fiiend Koerner he wrote in 1792 : "I have forraed the irre
vocable resolution not to leave the Kantian philosophy till I
have fathoraed it, though this should cost rae three years."
He -wrote to Kant hiraseff to assure hira of his adherence to
' Instead of the triad— God, freedom, and immortality, we here have freedom,
virtue, and God (a God "high above time and space," having no relation to,
and taking no care of the world).

240 SCHILLER.
his system, and he did not approve of Herder's not taking
the sarae decided ground in favour of Kant's philosophy.
SchiUer's own enthusiasm for Kant, however, lasted only a
few years. Afterwards, he was repeUed by the austere and
monkish in Kant's systera of raorals, and though he did not
return to Christianity, he still acknowledged that there was a
difference between it and Kantism. In this respect, a letter
to Goethe in 1795 is reraarkable, in which he praises the
" Confessions of a Beautiful Soul " in " Wilhelra Meister," and
then expresses hiraseff thus : " In the Christian rehgion I find
virtually the occasion for what is highest and noblest, and the
different raanifestations of this religion in real life appear to
rae so offensive and insipid, only because they are abortive
representations of this highest. If we cling only to the pecu
liar character of Christianity which distinguishes it from all
other raonotheistic religions, we shall find that it consists in
nothing else than an abolition of the law of Kant's impera
tive, in the place of which Christianity wants a free inclina
tion." Here SchiUer was on the right track to the recognition
of the peculiarity of Christianity, and in the same letter he
denotes it " the incarnation of the Holy One ;" but he does not
go any farther than to consider Christianity for this very
reason, as " an esthetic religion, which is chiefly beneficial to
the nature of woraan, and is, therefore, only met with in a
Tolerable form in women."
WhUst Schiller only occasionally refers to rehgious and
theological raatters in raost of his works, we have a theo
logical essay in his " Mission of Moses," which he, however,
corapleted before he becarae a Kantian. In this essay his
rationalistic tendency is very evident. On the one hand, in
the effort to change the rairaculous as related in the Bible,
aud as it irapresses the fancy, into the natural, the exphcable;
and on the other, also, in tbe stress he lays on the provi
dential, which raanifests itself in the direction of human des
tiny, and in the use and shaping- of circumstances, as the
kemel separated frora the shell. Schiller recognises the hand
of Providence in the history of Moses, " but not tbat Prori
dence which interferes with the econoray of nature in the
violent way of miracles, but that which has itself prescribed

SCHILLER. 241
such an economy for nature, which perforras extraordinary
things in the most quiet way." He affirms that Moses,
being initiated into the Egyptian mysteries, attained a know
ledge of the one God, that, however, instead of proclaiming this
idea of the one God as an empty, abstract theory, he had
connected it with the idea of the national Divinity of the
Hebrews, and that he was not satisfied with raaking this
national God the greatest of all gods ; he raade Hira the
only God, and hurled all gods back into their nothingness.
The truth of this notion of SchiUer is perhaps this, that in
the Old Testament, the Creator of heaven and earth at the
same time appears as the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of
Jacob, and that in this connection of the raonotheistic-uni-
versal and the national, the peculiar religious power of the
Mosaic and Jewish religion in general consists. But the
false, the raistaken in this idea, is, that he represents that as
the work of ingenious huraan calculation and deliberation,
which, according to the Christian belief, is the work of the
(Uvine education of the race.^ This leads us to Schiller's -views
on history in general, and to his position as a historian.
SchUler had becorae professor of history in Jena, without
any effort of his to attain the position, at a period when his
soul was full of dramatic projects. Thus far, history had only
been a raine of poetry to him, of the drama especially, and it
was to be the same in the future. In a letter to a female
friend he has expressed himself clearly on this subject :
" I shall always be a bad source for a future historian who
wiU be so unfortunate as to turn to rae for authority. But I
shall probably find readers and hearers, at the expense of his
toric truth, with which I may now and then agree philosophi
cally. History in genercd is only a magazine for my fancy,
and the objects must submit to be pla.stic in my hands."
A hazardous confession for a professor of history ! but, at the
same tirae, an iraportant confession, which gives us a general view
of the unhistorical nature of the wide-spread phUosophical
mode of thinking in that day. Kant also wanted the Bible to
be so used that you can make what you will out of it for the
' We see how little SchiUer could transpose himself into the religious thinking
of antiquity from the frivolous Voltaire-like manner in which he derides the
appearance of God in the burning bush, and thc faco of Mosl-s taking oil his
shoes.

242 SCHILLER.
sake of morality. SchiUer claims the same for aesthetics, and
thus the great and fine rainds knew how to share the profits
with each other, since now they degraded history to the office
ofa servant, as they had forraerly done philosophy ; and this defi
ciency of historical taste, I raight say of historical humility,
which, with self-denial, regards history as a power above the
individual, pervades the history of rationalisra. It has mani
fested itself in different departments of learning, in law as well
as in theology, in politics as well as in art. We do not mean
to say that Schiller lacked aU high views of history. Some
exceUent ideas on this subject are expressed in his academical
introductory discourse : " What is, and for what purpose do
we study, universal history ?" In opposition to the former
confession so carelessly made, he here acknowledges that in
history truth is the great consideration, and recognises the ob
ligation "to be careful that the value of truth may not he
diminished in his hands" Here, however, it is more the
generalising philosophiccd spirit for which he is zealous than
the fine historical sense which knows how to seize and to
estirnate that which is individual, peculiar, in each nation, age,
and person. This sarae deficiency of taste for the individual
in history appears in Schiller's poeras, sorae characters are not
only arbitrarily idealised, but changed to their opposites, and
persons are made the bearers of ideas which are foreign to
their nature. Schiller's heroes are generaUy less the speakers
of their age than the organs through which he conveys his
philosophy ; they are the rairror of the poet, not of their age :
therefore the plastic, which Goethe could handle so weU, is
frequently outweighed (as in Racine and the French generally)
by the declaraatory.^ The declaraatory requires strong con
trasts ; and, in history, SchiUer's eye is more keen for these
than for the events and their connection. But there is much
danger of exaggeration, and, therefore, of untruth in this.
Whoever seeks either savageness or civiUzation, nobility or
meanness of soul, huraanity or brutaUty everywhere, show.s
but little susceptibility for the intermediate grades and
states of transition, for the infinite blending of events ; lacks
the skill and patience to describe characters according to the
whole truth, and -will waver between the original and its ca-
' Wallenstein's Lager is a fine exception to this.

SCHILLER. 243
ricature. It is a coraraon law of history, that the past raust
serve the present ; but, above all, justice raust be done to the
past, and we raust not arbitrarily raeasure the past by the
present, and lay aside, Uke old clothes, whatever at first sight
appears to be of no advantage to the age. Rationalism,
which wanted to recoin the discoveries of history into cur
rent money, injured the historical sense, and hence the quiet,
judicious industry with which Herder, hke the bee, gathered
the memorials of history, the reverence which he manifested
for the past and for the dead was among other things
highly offensive to Schiller. In harsh expressions, he charges
him with veneration for all that is dead and antiquated, and
-with indifference towards all that is alive, and calls the dili
gence with which he coUects the materials of the past, a
miserable culling of antiquated and diseased Uterature.
If we tum again to his discourse on the study of history,
we find occasion to rejoice in the fact that in it Schiller re
veals the Protestant character of his raind, and with a certain
pride says that " he speaks to Protestant Christians." " The
Christian religion," he continues, "has so rauch to do with
tbe present condition of the world, that it becoraes the most
important fact in the history of the world." But he adds, by
way of liraiting this reraark, " that neither in the time in
which Christianity appeared nor in the people in which it
arose, can a sufficient explanation for its appearance be found,"
and he thinks the reason lies in a want of original sources of
historical facts. Here, too, philosophy, and a philosophical prag
matic method, which arranges history according to its own
laws, raakes up for hira the deficiency of sources and a want
of the study of those that really exist. Philosophy raust
unite the fragraents and transforra the given materials into a
connected whole.
Schiller, then, regards Christianity as the most iraportant
fact in the history of the world. If, however, those only
fuUy can coraprehend its historical position, as the redeeraing
power of the world, who have a deep view of the nature
and historical ramification of sin, it might be objected
against SchiUer that this he did not possess. Even the
very beginning of the history of our race he regards (in
an essay on this subject), frora a point of view accoixling

244 SCHILLER.
to which the first transgression of the divine commandment,
as related in the Mosaic account, does not appear to be a mis
fortune, but a blessing. He sees, with the ancient Gnostics,
no fall in the first sin, but an elevation of the human race to
raoral independence on awakening from the drearas of child
hood to real consciousness. Hence he does not regard Chris
tianity as a restoration, but at best as an eleraent of develop
ment in the progress of the race towards humanity.
Whilst Schiller's name is- -perhaps scarcely mentioned in
church history, rauch less his influence on national culture
estiraated in it, we have at the very beginning remarked,
that we did not intend to consider merely the ecclesiastical
phenomena in the narrow Sense of the word, but also to
draw into the circle of our conteraplations whatever has
influenced the forraation of ideas in general, has opened new
points of view in judging of raoral relations, has produced
new tendencies of thought, of feeling, of .action, and has thus
raost deeply influenced the progressive development of Pro
testantisra. And who can deny that Schiller has been thus
influential ?
If we exaraine Schiller's poeras raore closely, we shall
soon agree that the title, "Christian," could hardly be
chosen to indicate their nature, and stUl less shall we look
for hymns there. Schiller has been blaraed for not having
been a writer of hymns ; but it is wrong to blame him
on this account. It is not the business of a single in
dividual to write a hymn ; the impulse to it must lie
' in the age, but in no age was the impulse for this less
than in that in which Schiller lived. We would scarcely
thank him, if, to redeem hiraself as it were, he had
patched together a few reUgious verses, and in all the rest
had still shown hiraself a secular poet, as was the case, for
instance, with Uz, Guenther, and others. SchUler's poeins
proceeded frora the depths of his soul, and were the fuU ex-
]3ression of his character. They all contain truth, even ff only
subjective truth. Nothing was raore offensive to him than-
tbe appearance of hypocrisy. WhUst he hiraseff breathed the
air of the old Christian life, he raight write a poem hke the
one we have given; afterwards he could also have done it and
much better, as far as talent is concemed, but he could not.

SCHILLER. 24,')
have done it consistently, not without sporting with the most
holy things, and this he was unwiUing to do. Let us honour
this disposition, and not be forgetful of it in judging of his
poems. The fact, however, raust be carefully noticed, that there is
an extensive fleld between that which is Christian in the
narrowest sense of the word, and unchristian, and though vve
do not wish to be too free with the name "Christian," though
we do not say that the moral is in itself the Christian, (in
-ivhich the error of rationalism consisted), stiU we may admit
that where we raeet with an excellent moral disposition, a
point is found where Christianity can comraence its influence,
and that at least a principal obstacle in the way of Christianitv
has been reraoved. It is, therefore, the moral dignity and
purity running through most of his poems, which is especially
worthy of acknowledgraent, even viewed from the Christian
standpoint. Schiller elevated poetry from the filth of sensu
ality, into which it was threatening to sink from an imitation
of foreign raodels, into the pure sphere of the ideal. Ought
we not to thank him for this as Christians ? Whoever walks
with Schiller, perhaps treads with hira on giddy heights, may
pass dangerous chasms and abysses, but he does not walk in
darkness, not in filthy mire, but always with his eye directed
towards the sun, thougli this raay hide itself behind the black
storm-clouds of anxious doubts and powerful errors. From
such a dreadful height, on the edge of an abyss, his " Resigna
tion " resounds, and he longingly casts his eye back to
the old Hellenistic land of fables, and wishes the gods of
Greece back into the very raidst of Christianity.^ But in this
stormy breast a noble heart beats, which longs for God, and
as far as the " sods of Greece " are concemed, it is raore the
abstract soulless theology which banishes the living God
from the world, and changes all into dead forces of nature,
against which this poem is directed, than against real
Christianity. Even when Schiller in his " Words of De-
' His correspondence with Koerner throws some light on this subject. " Tbe
God whora I place in the shade by the side of the gods of Greece, is not the
God ofthe philosophers (?) nor the beneficial vision of the great mass (!) bnt it
is a monster formed by the combination of many weak, false conceptions."
After all, the God of philosophers ; at least not the God of the Bible.

246 SCHILLER.
lusion " appears to doubt all truth, when he jsays that
the truth never manifests itseff to the " human under
standing," when he calls that wdiich we raay attain mere
" guessing and opinion :" he still has that dead, formal
wisdora chiefly in view, which thinks it can iraprison the
mind in a " sounding word," whether it be called orthodoxy
or a philosophical systera ; but he wants the heavenly faith
to be preserved. " What no ear has heard, no eyes have
seen, is nevertheless the beautiful, the true ; it is not
without — there the fool seeks it ; it is in thee, thou art con
tinually producing it." He says soraething similar in his
poera on the Coraraenceraent of the New Centurj' : " Thou
must flee frora the bustle of life to the holy, sUent chambers
of the heart ; freedom exists only in the realra of dreams, and
the beautiful bloora s only in song."
This retiring to the inner world SchiUer has in common
with raany noble minds who, being ungently touched by the
external world and its formalities, take refuge in the quiet
horae of the soul. We honour the beautiful and the grand
in this disposition, but will not close our eyes to its dangers.
This retiring into one's self raay easily awaken pride, false
self-contentedness, which is never really content, and which
seeks araends in despising others. Tbe raorbid in Schiller's
tendency, which was coraraunicated to raany of his contem
poraries, and which finds its root in the Kantian philosophy,
is that forced ideality, which hovers high above us as some
thing- superraundane, soraething unattainable, and to which
we can only raise ourselves by the highest soaring of the
fancy ; whUst Christianity holds to a historical realization of
the ideal, which has already taken place, in reference to the
reUgious and raoral, by raeans of which the transformation of
the huraan into the divine is also to be made possible, of
course not through a high poetical or speculative flight ot
thought, but in the raodest way of hurable waiting and
StruggUng. When Schiller caUs to the Friends : " AU in life
is but a repetition, and only the fancy is etemaUy young ;
that which never and nowhere occurred, only that never be
comes antiquated ;" Christianity answers, " It has certainly
occurred somewhere ; and at a certain time, the saving grace of
God has appeared to all men — we beheld His glory, the glory as

SCHILLER. 247
of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth,"
and this it is which never becoraes antiquated, but an eternal
rejuvenescence proceeds fi'ora the Spirit of regeneration into
aU the world, ever since the days of that appearance.
At other times, SchiUer himself, when he descended from
the ideal heights into the valley where raen walk, knew how
to appreciate what Christianity, as an existing reality, could
accorapUsh in the hearts of raen. " Religion of the cross,
Thou alone bindest together in one wreath, that of huraility
and power, double palras." Thus he addresses his Knights of
St. John. And is it not spoken frora the depths of a Chris
tian consciousness, in direct opposition to an understanding
making aU things plain, as well as against a proud idealisra
of reason, when in his " Words of faith " he says : " And what
no understanding of the intelligent perceives, is practised in
simplicity by a chUd-like faith." The raost beautiful apology
lies in these words. Christ hiraself has the same idea when
He says, " If any man will do His wiU, he shaU know of the
doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of ray
self ;" and, " Blessed are the pure in heart : for they shall see
God." " I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth,
because thou hast hid these things frora the wise and prudent,
and hast revealed thera unto babes." That the unhappiness
of raan does not lie in God, as the " Resignation " seeras to
indicate, but in raan and his sinfulness, this was expressed
by SchiUer in his " Bride of Messina," with these words :
" Everywhere the world is perfect, where man does not corae
-with his griefe." And in the earnest tragical close : " This
one thing I feel and clearly understand, That Ufe is not the
greatest good, but guilt the greatest evil."
Schiller, however, leaves the wound and the gap which
guilt has made open before our eyes, and gives us a view of
the depth of sin- without, at the same tirae, leading us to the
height where the debt is canceUed and frora whence issues
balra for the wounded heart.
Though SchiUer did not penetrate to the heart of Chris
tianity, of which he, however, soraetiraes bad a faint view,
still he was not a stranger to its hopes. "Even at the
grave he awakens hope." Does it not appear as if we heard
Klopstock in the " Song of the BeU," when it is said : " We

248 scHiLLr.K.
raournfuUy hide seed still more precious in the bosom of the
earth, and hope that it will grow up out of the tomb to a
destiny raore beautiful."
" These words," says G. Schwab, " through which the poet
has won many thousand hearts, are the words of the mourn
ing and hoping son and brother. Are they incompatible
with the truth ? Are they a falsehood and fraud of our con
ception ? Then the Christianity of the Bible is also an inven
tion for blockheads, as it was formerly and even lately
asserted."^ Schiller had periods, however, in which his look into the
future was dark, and when he regarded the hope of immorta^
lity as one of the supports only needed by the raoral weakling;
but still it appears, that if the heart of the poet himself was
wounded, he liked to lean on this support, which rationalism
always honestly defended as an essential part of all religion,
and which the great Kant nurabered araong the requirements
of the practical reason. In after life, SchiUer, as already
remarked, turned away more and raore frora the Kantian
philosophy, and buried himself in poetry, his proper sphere.
And though he apparently gained nothing by this, so far as
Christianity is concemed, stiU he gained this advantage, that
he attained a clearer view of the nature of religious revela
tions, or that he at least accepted a region lying beyond the
sphere of our understanding, a region of believing and antici
pating knowledge, in whicli poetry and religion meet. Thus
iie says in his poera "The Artists," of 1789 : "What reason,
growing old, discovered after thousands of years had passed
away, was lying in syrabols of the beautiful and great pre-
revecded to the childlike raind."
Suppose this pre-reveaUng in symbols, in the artistic sense,
had given the friends of Christianity an opportunity of coming
to an understanding with the poet in reference to the nature
of religious revelations ? But there was no opportunity for
this. Schiller died before he had fully perfected his convic
tions. What a pity he could not agree with Herder ! What
' We do not agree with Schwab when he thinks Christ is referred to in Don
Carlos in these words : " Ever since mothers have given birth, only one — one
has died so undeservedly." Marquis Posa refers evidently to his murdered
friend ; this is quite like Schiller.

SCHILLER. 249
an influence these two minds might have exerted by their
exaraple, if they had used the power at their coraraand for the
hving and intellectual comprehension of Christianity.
Frora a person in intiraate connection with the poet, we .
learn that, towards the close of his life, the world-wide histori
cal influence of Christianity, and the pure, holy forra of
its Founder, filled him with continually increasing rever
ence. And basing his opinion principaUy on this fact, the
orator at the unveiling of Schiller's statue said confidently,
"that the heart of the great poet raay not have been so fiir
removed frora Hira whose narae he indeed seldora mentioned,
but who stUl has a name above aU other naraes." But even
supposing that SchiUer never carae into a nearer relation to
Christianity than that indicated in his works, one thing must
not be forgotten, that the individual can never entirely separ
ate himseff frora the totality in which he lives, and that every
one, no raatter how high he raay stand, is borne by his age.
This is true both of the enors and truths which govern an
age. If we take " Christian" in its widest signification, in
opposition to heathenisra and antiquity, we shaU find, that
SchUler's poetry, in spite of all the gods of Greece and all
his longing for the ancient poetical land of fables, still has its
root in Christian history — the Christian, that is, the modern
view of the world. A raode of conteraplation, essentiaUy
Christian, Ues at the basis of his tragedies, "Mary Stuart," the
" Maid of Orleans," and " Wallenstein," as well as of many of
his baUads and novels, and " even where the poet handles a
subject taken from mythology he transforras it through his
subjectivity. In short, he stands on a position rauch higher
than that of antiquity."' And for this he is indebted to
Christianity. So rauch in reference to the question, whether
SchUler is to be caUed a Christian poet. We must still
answer the question, what position did he occupy in refer
ence to Protestantism ?
If Protestantism consisted only in protesting against false ,
piety, against hypocrisy and priestly dorainion, in struggUng
for freedora of conscience and of thought, for poUtical and
religious independence, who would refuse to place Schiller in
the first rank of the corabatants ? We, too, caU hira a Protes
tant in this sense, and by this we raean an honourable, noble

250 SCHILLER.
Protestantisra, one which, with all its partiality, raay stUl be
clearly distinguished frora raere noisyandlowbullying. SchUler's
soul was thoroughly aniraated with a noble wrath against aU
that debases raan and reason, against all that lowers the dig
nity of man. " I will," he writes in reference to " Don Carlos,"
" make it my duty to revenge the prostituted huraan race, and
to expose its ignominious blots to shame.'' With these words
he has not only expressed the object of that draraa, but of his
entire life. We have already reraarked, that this is not re
garded by us as the genuine Protestantism which we seek and
desire to follow in our history, but that in this zeal the chas
tising spirit of Luther is seen to sorae extent, no one wfll
deny.^ It appears strange to us that SchiUer, as historian, should
have chosen that part of raodern history in which the reli
gious contest, produced by the Reforraation, is particularly
prorainent — the revolt of the Netherlands, the thirty years'
war, and the i-eligious wars of the French. The deep reli
gious raotives are indeed not made most prominent in
these (Gustavus Adolphus, for instance, being viewed merely
in a political light), still it cannot be denied, that quite a
Protestant tendencj^ manifests itseff in the whole, in which
we recognize bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh. But
how? did not Schiller, as poet, covet the favour of Catholi
cisra ? Has he not, in his " Mary Stuart," presented ber as
a martyr of that Church, and done Queen Elizabeth great
injustice ? Did he not, in his " Walk to the Forge," give a
favourable description of the services of the mass ; and in his
" Rudolf of Hapsburg," does he not defend the raising of the
host and the officiating priest? I do not think that any
person will really accuse SchiUer, frora such passages as these,
of a Catholicizing tendency, — a tendency which was much
more coraraon in what is called the romantic school than
in him. At best you might see in it that indifferentism,
which values a poetical impression above all other things,
' Schiller by no means sought the reformatory merely in destroying.' "To
destroy," he says, " is a business unworthy^distinguished power, so long as there
is anything left to be created." He recommends " a judicious indulgence to
wards opinions, feelings, institutions, which contain a germ of human dignity
worthy of development."

SCHILLER. 251
and therefore raakes every religious forra subservient to it.
But even this is not necessary. Genuine Protestantism
knows how to value the forras of Catholic worship in their
historical connection and in their proper place, and only a
contracted Puritanisra would expect the poet to confine hira
self to that which strictly belongs to his confession. Neverthe
less the raanner in which he has represented Mary Stuart and
EUzabeth raight bring the charge of injustice against the
poet, since he has abused poetical freedom in general in this
piece, not only in idealizing historical personages, but in
changing them to their very opposites.
But enough of Schiller's person. If we now ask, what
influence Schiller exerted in his age, we can only say, that it
was exceedingly great, and is stUl continuing. Is it not so ?
To know SchUler, to have read hira, to cite hira, — this,
sorae twenty or thirty years ago, was regarded as a proof
tbat one belonged to the educated world, and in sorae
circles is stiU so regarded. The learned world, of course,
requires raore in our day, and he who wants to pass for a
man of superior education raust shrug his shoulders at the
mention of SchiUer in order to extol Goethe, though for the
most raodern portion even Goethe has becorae too old ; above
whora certain young lords would like to be placed. Schiller,
however, stiU has his adrairers in all classes of society ; and
though it raay be an evidence that one still stands in a
former grade of education if he adraires Schiller exclusively,
still the raan really educated will, because educated, rejoice at
the richness of SchiUer's genius, and a vigorous youth will
always feel the effect of SchiUer's writing.s. This is a proof
of the power of his poeras, and it would certainly evince an
ignorance of the development of the national education of Ger
many, as well as of Protestantism and its different elements,
to regard the influence of SchiUer, formerly and now, as
only deleterious. It is only a one-sided Christianity,
which would keep itself entirely free from the influences of
art and of cultivation ; such, however, can never be more
than a raere sect, can never develop itself to a reUgion of
world-wide iraportance. Who can deny that the feeUng for
the beautiful and noble, as nourished by SchiUer, is not only
consistent with Christianity, but that it can be purified

252 SCHILLER.
and ennobled by Christianity, and by this means can be
canied farther than Schiller himself did ? Just as, according
to the united testimony of all sensible raen, the study of
the Grecian and Roraan Classics must exert, even in reference
to Christianity, a cultivating and reflning influence under
the direction of a Christian teacher ; so, too, the German
Classics, which, with their entire view of the world, stand on
Christian ground, raust, in the hands of Christian teachers,
serve as raeans of cultivating the taste and of iraproving the
language. The atterapt to banish them frora our schools, or
firesides and libraries, through Christian zeal, would certainly
not be advisable ; this would but be making the youth lust after
forbidden fruit, — it would even deprive thera of an essential
part of their education, — would be educating thera in a one
sided manner. But the overrating of Schiller's poetry, and
the universal and exclusive reign which was claimed for a
while for this raode of thinking, and of writing poetry, are
just as one-sided. . . .
That everything in Schiller is not to be praised, — that in
raany of his poeras there are objectionable things, even in
reference to art and taste, is now generally acknowledged, as
the dispute in reference to the preference between Schiller
and Goethe, sufficiently proves. The over-rating is, however,
stiU raore partial in reference to raorality, and where held
fanatically, may take a hostile position towards Christianity.
But as every tendency developes partially for a while, till
overcome, or at least confined to its pr5per limits by another,
so it was, too, in this case. The more SchiUer's mode of
thinking erabraced! elements which were opposed to the
then prevalent Christian and ecclesiastical mode of think
ing, the more eagerly did the youth, longing for some
thing fresh and new, receive his writings. " The Words of
Faith " had now more influence on raany young men than
the Apostles' creed, which they had thoughtlessly learned
frora their catechisra ; the charm of the beautiful language
transported raany rainds to a kind of sentimental enthusiasm,
and the ideal striving for the divdne satisfled, "though it
raight eveiywhere lead to sturabUng," raany who did not
care rauch for the sturabling. Instead of seeking forgiveness
of sins in the difficult, toUsorae way of •Christian repentance.

SCHILLER. 253
and of working out their salvation with fear and trembling,
it was easier to join in the song with the joyous companions :
" All sins shaU be forgiven, and heU shall be no raore."
But we must not judge too harshly of this phenomenon.
We must not see mere wickedness and hard-heartedness in it,
nor always even a formal aversion to Christianity. The
forms in which Christianity expressed itself had really become
too nanow for the impetuous spirit of the age. Secular
education had overtaken, and even surpassed the religious.
There were stiU learned and believing theologians, but only a
few who, fumished with the spirit of Herder, could satisfy,
or even atterapted to satisfy, both the requireraents of the
mind and conscience, both the requireraents of the Church
and of learning ; and those who did atterapt it were led to
an awkward position, and ran the risk of falling into the
bad state of being haff-way between the two. Even Herder
himself, as we have already seen, did not at all times seem
equal to the great task of presenting Christianity and
huraanity in their unity. How can we then be surprised, if
many preachers, who were dissatisfied with the dryness of
Kant's doctrines, and who felt that more was needed to
elevate and inspire the soul of raan than Kant's iraperative,
now raade use of Schiller's ; that they brought before the
people frora the pulpit their favourite poet, whora they had
applauded in the theatre, and either cited frora his works,^ or
else preached in borabastic Schillerian phrases ? It was,
therefore, atterapted to supply what rationalism lacked in
depth of feeling, by sentimentality, in which there of course
could be no want of hollow declaraation. Frequently, indeed,
the dryness of an insipid raorality, and the shallowness of a
fiowery bombast, are mingled in the same serraon.
' How many sermons commenced with the words, " There are moments in
human life."

254 SALZMANN, CAMPE, ETC.

XVIL

SALZMANN, CAMPE, PESTALOZZI, HAMANN, AND
CLAUDIUS.
CHANGES IN EDUCATIONAL VIEWS.  SALZMANN, CAMPE, PESTA
LOZZI, AND HIS RELATION TO CHRISTIANITY.  INFLUENCE
OF PESTALOZZIANISM ON THE RELIGIOUS MODE OF THINK
ING.  H.UIANN : SKETCH OF HIS LIFE AND EXTRACTS FROM
HIS WORKS.  CLAUDIUS, THE WANDSBECK MESSENGER
The changes wrought in the way of viewing all raoral and
religious subjects, towards the close of the eighteenth and be
ginning of the nineteenth centuries, were thoroughgoing.
Everywhere we see the new break fortii and battle fiercely
with the old. What Kant had done in philosophy, utterly
destroying the fabric of forraer days, and constructing an
entirely changed science of thought, Schiller (and Goethe) had
done in literature. Kant and Schiller, diverse as their courses
were, and dissimilar as were the provinces of labour, brought
about the same results : the one as philosopher by his rigid
dialectics ; the other, as poet, by his singularly attractive use
of speech'; the one from the professor's chair, the other from
the stage. Both found comraon ground in the tendency to
analyse, to overthrow the old ecclesiastical forraulse, and to
search after an ideal raoral standpoint, which, instead of rest
ing on the positive foundations of a traditional faith, should
rest solely on free inquiry, and the irrefragable results of
human reasoning. Thus Kantianism led to rationalism, and
SchiUer's poetry prepared the way for that aesthetic sentimen
talism which should relieve so gratefully the dryness of ra
tionalisra. In the sarae category with the new philosophy
and the new poetry, stood, at least in sorae regards, the uew
theories of education. Not that these were ffrst propagated
for the express purpose of carrying to the young the novel
views of the age ; but without any forraal union with those
who advanced those views, and acting apparently independent

SALZMANN, CAMPE, ETC. 255
of thera, yet the educational organs chiraed in with the rational
ising tendencies of the times.
Even before Kant propounded his philosophy, and before
SchiUer's narae was everywhere heard, the principles of Rous
seau had gained a lodgraent in Gerraan rainds, and had begun
to exert influence ; raore especially in the departraent of edu
cation, since Basedow had established his institute and pub
lished his views. Formerly it had been the church which
took the initiative in educational affairs and controlled them
absolutely, but they now passed beyond ecclesiastical controL
One institute on Basedow's plan followed another in quick
succession ; one raethod of instruction speedily crowded out
another. Salzraann and Carape took up the raantle of Base
dow, and tried, like their predecessor, to reach theology through
an educational reforra, and to raake the church an entirely
changed, ff not totally needless, institution.
We turn to a raore detailed account of Salzraann and
Campe, the followers of Basedow in the educational fleld, and
who carried out, in the sarae Une, the work that he began.
Christian GotthUf Salzraann, bom the sarae year with
Herder, 1744, in the neighbourhood of Erfurt, had been edu
cated for the pulpit, and had preached for a tirae in Erfurt ;
but, in 1781, he relinquished his appointment of his own
accord in order to labour with Basedow in the Philanthropin,
tbe new school at Dessau. While a clergyraan, he had pub
lished a nuraber of educational papers, in which he attacked
those who held to the old routine raethod, and he had also
published his rationalistic views of religion. He was especially
severe on the orthodox raode then in vogue, of coraraitting
verses and theological stateraents which chUdren do not under
stand, and says : " that he would prefer that a son of his
should rob a bird's nest than learn the Catechisra." In Dessau
the departraent of religion was entrasted to hira; and at the
pubhc worship of the school, he delivered the discourses which
he published in 1 783. In these discourses, raorality is the
main topic, although thereis not lacking a distinctive reUgious
tone, especially in those which treat of the Oranipresence and
Omniscience of God. Salzraann was unquestionably pervaded
with reUgious feeling, and this proclairas itself in all his writ
ings, even in his roraances, and most of aU in his sermons.

256 SALZMANN, CAMPE, ETC.
In 1784 he left Dessau and founded the institution of Schrip
feuthal, near Gotha, and soon witnessed araong his pupils
representatives of every country in Europe. .The reputation of
this school was at its height at the opening of this centuiy,
since which tirae it has declined. During its flourishing
epoch he took pains to disserainate the new principles with
which he proposed to regenerate education, to overthrow the
lifeless orthodoxy which opposed hira. His religious style was
often tainted by a kind of obscure dreaminess, and a superfluity
of imagery which is almost never met with elsewhere among
the rationalists, who are usually devoid of this, even to bald
ness. The spirituality of Salzmann is unquestionable ; and
though his antagonism to the church seems to indicate the
absence of religion, yet he was indebted to Christianity for his
tender feelings. Basedow and Carape were very different
raen in this regard frora Salzmann, and should never be con
founded with him, Salzmann had a great deal of SchiUer's
sentimentalism ; but he ought to be always remembered, not
as hard and diy, but as devout and sympathetic. It is aU the
more sad to see such a raan thrown frora religious associations
and converted into an antagonist, because he was capable of
better things.
Less a man of feeUng than Salzraann, was Joachim Hein
rich Carape, who had been educated as a theologian from bis
childhood, and was for a tirae chaplain in the regiment of the
Prince of Prussia, but afterwards director of the Philanthropin
at Dessau. Later still, he founded an institution of his own
at Haraburg. He died at Brunswick in 1818, at the age of
seventy-two. He was always in entire antagonism to the
sentiraentality which was inspired by the later literature of
his country. He reckoned poetry as one of the unproductive
arts, which had its highest raission in an age of barbarism, as
a poor substitute for reason ; but now poetry would be hke ,a
lantern in broad daylight. With alraost puritanic rigour, he
refused to allow his daughter to associate with men of letters,
who, he thought, differed little frora seducers of youth.
Carape is well known in Gerraany as the great apostle of
utiUty, and the man who knew how to make himself useful
always and everywhere, was the ideal which he constantly
held up. Self-reliance, too, was a therae frequently enforced

SALZMANN, CAMPE, ETC. 257
by him, and the favourite motto of his Robinson Crusoe -was
" God helps thera who help theraselves." To gain the victory
over oneself, he considered worth the struggle of a life.
Bitter as he was in his antagonism to the old faith, he
was a devout believer in a Providence which overrules aU the
events of Ufe, and therefore can be a hearer of prayer.
The side of Carape's character to be kept in honour, and
which has Uttle justice done it, is his raoral correctness, and
the fixedness of his adherence to his own religious ideas.
Despite all his bitterness to orthodoxy and even to Christianity,
Campe was a thoroughgoing reforraer. This showed itself
even in the doraain of language, in his efforts to get rid of aU
foreign words, which had becorae grossly abundant since the
French rule. His effort is worthy of all praise. The puri
fying- of language is, in a certain sense, the purifying of
morals ; and, in Carape, the effort to do both grew raani
festly frora the same root. He wished to do his work
thoroughly; but he set about it in true rationalistic fashion,
that is, frora an abstract theory without regard to historical
developraent. It is with speech as with religion, and witii
words as with dograas. No one can sit in the study and issue
mandates which will be obeyed, and irapose authority upon
others which will be recognised. Campe wanted to anticipate
the natural developraent of speech, and set words of his own
coinage in the place of the foreign intruders ; but his right to
give thera citizenship was not adraitted. Language, like reli
gion, raust be forraed under the influence of many concurring
causes ; it raust be born out of the needs of life, as it was
with Luther ; and as, indeed, it was with Goethe, who, with
all his use of foreign words, did raore for the Gerraan lan
guage than Carape with all his new forraations. And it has
been just so in religion : rationalism, with all its conect theory
.of progress, has never been able to dictate so orderly and
natural an advance as the untrararaelled developraents of
time. The thing needed in the departraent of education was not -
only that theories should be advanced and institutions
founded, but that a man should especially arise fi-ora the
people, who would give hiraseff wdth enthusiasra to the
beautfful work of training the young to that for which the
R

258 SALZMANN, CAMPE, ETC.
age longed. Such a man was Pestalozzi. If Christ says, " By
their fruits ye shall know them," and " Whoso shall receive a
child receiveth rae ;" if He praises active love as the trait by
which His disciples may be known ; if He contrasts the con
fidence in God, which takes no care for the morrow, but leaves
all care to its heavenly Father, with the bustling and driving
of the heathen ; — then the question whether John Henry Pes
talozzi was a Christian would soon be decided.^ Public opinion
has lately been divided in reference to hira as well as SchiUer,
— sorae denying and others warraly defending his claira to
Christianity. In discussing questions of this kind, special care
must be taken to avoid all excitement, and above aU, first to
gain a clear understanding of the proposed question. When
the Bible on the one hand admonishes us to try the spirits ;
and on the other, calls to us. Who art thou that judgest
another man's servant ? we have enough to guide us in our
raode of procedure. History certainly has the right of sum
moning all, even the noblest of men, before its tribunal, and
hence a history which proposes to give the development of
Christian life in its various forms, has a right to ask in refer
ence to every man : in what relation does he stand to Chris
tianity, and how far do we recognize in him the Christian
principle so far as this is known to us ?
It is not, therefore, to be reg-arded as a want of love or mark
of ingratitude, if in reference to men whom we must personally
esteera highly and regard as the leaders of their age, we ask
the question (as we do now in reference to Pestalozzi), in what
relation did they stand to Christianity? We raust, however, be
careful not to judge the person; and even where we fix our
attention on the o'pinions we raust remember that we, as weak
men, raay easily err, either because our standard of Christianity
is not always correct, or that we do not know the facts in
the case sufficiently to forra an accurate judgraent. The cause
of truth can only be proraoted by such investigations, if con-
' " The peculiarity of my powers consisted in the vivacity with which my
heart impelled me to give and seek love wherever it could be found, to act in a
friendly and agreeable manner, to endure, to forbear, and to conquer self. I
knew of no greater joy of life than the eye of gratitude and the confidential
grasp of the hand. I sought the poor and gladly tarried with them." Need we
anything besides this confession of his ?

SALZMANN, CAMPE, ETC. 259
ducted with care and modesty, and in the spirit of Christian
love and entirely for the sake of truth ; for a great mind is as
Uttle reaUy honoured by an unconditional admiration without
any criticisra, as it can be dishonoured by passionate abuse
and a mania for censuring. We will, therefore, first consider
the nature and activity of Pestalozzi, and then as far as
possible form a judgraent of his position in reference to
Christianity. In doing this we shall -make use of the sketch
given only a few years ago by one of our raost esteeraed
schoolmen.^ Pestalozzi was born in Zurich, January 12, 1746. He
early lost his father, and was trained by his raother, whose
pecuniary embarrassments were great, and under the eye of
his grandfather, a pious evangelical rainister of the siraple
old-fashioned style. His progress at school was not very
great. He was awkward in his intercourse with other chil
dren, and his teacher predicted that he would never greatly
excel. Thoughtlessness, absence of raind, and carelessness
occasioned hira raany difficulties ; but his rich raind raade
amends for the rough external irapressions flowing frora these
sources, and a genial gaiety assisted hira in overcoming
the most grievous matters. When, however, revolting in
justice was exercised towards hira, he manifested the sarae
defying spirit which was shown by the young Lavater.
WhUst Basedow, Salzmann, and Carape^ all raade theology
their profession, Pestalozzi soon abandoned it and studied law ;
but he also left this study with the full deterraination to be
come a schoolraaster. And he did becorae such, — a school
master such as is rarely seen, the " schoolraaster of the huraan
race,'' as an enthusiastic adrairer has called hira. He coraraenced
at the very foundation, and this is the reason he excelled so
nobly. In Neuhof, by Lenzburg, where he had been disap
pointed in an attempt at rural econoray, he founded his school
for the poor in 1775, and Isaac Iselin of Basle was one of the
first to assist hira. This friend also helped hira to the pubUca
tion of his flrst popular work, " Lienhard and Gertrude," 1781,
' Heussler.
^ These all used their influence in spreading the philanthropinic system of
education. — Tr.

260 SALZMANN, CAMPE, ETC.
which Pestalozzi had written on the blank pages of old account-
books in order to save paper. Pestalozzi hiraseff acknowledged
that without this noble friend Iselin, he would perhaps have
reraained obscure in the depths of his raisery; for few knew
how to estimate his 'inner worth, since he was early treated
with ingratitude, his best motives being misinterpreted,
and his unskilfulness in the management of his household
affairs occasioning hira raany difficulties. Pestalozzi appeared
in the height of his glory during the raisfortunes that
burst upon Gerraany frora France, when in the year 1798,
on the sraoking ruins of Stanz, he, assisted by the Swiss
directory, becarae a faithful and loving father to the orphans,
shared every morsel with them, slept with them, and was
neither estranged from them by their disgusting appearance
nor by the unreasonable judgments of others, till the storms
of war drove him away and shattered the orphan asylum.
He now becarae teacher in one of the lowest schools of Burg-
dorf, and there applied his raethod of eleraentary instruction
which, after contending with prejudices for a long while,
elicited the first, though rather Uraited, acknowledgment of
the public authorities of schools.
Pestalozzi's labours in teaching first began to attract gene
ral attention at the beginning of this century. He founded
a school of his own in Burgdorf " The Mother's Book," pub
lished by him in 1803 made a sensation; it became "the
corner-stone of his new method," and from that time men
also came from a distance to assist in the institution. The
praise of the extraordinary results drowned the clamour of
the opponents. Many of these changed their views by seeing
the eft'ects. Pestalozzi's narae becarae European ; how could
liis native land then leave hira unnoticed any longer ? The
Helvetian governraent declared the institution at Burgdorf a
public one, belonging to the nation, and connected with it a
seminary for teachers. But soon the state of affairs changed.
The Helvetian governraent resigned, the castle became the
seat of an upper bailiff, and the institution was transferred to
Iferten (Yverdon). It now grew iu extent, and attained
a European distinction. Pupils were sent from Ger
raany, France, Spain, Italy, and even from Russia and North

SALZMANN, CAMPE, ETC. 261
America. Those desirous of leaming flocked frora all quarters
to study the raethod of Pestalozzi, which now becarae the sub
ject of the raost lively pubUc discussion. Pestalozzi was now
no longer alone. Other teachers carae to his assistance,
who excelled hira in a scientific point of view, and mingled
their ideas with his. The intimate faraily circle increased
till it becarae a sraall state in which there was no lack of
warlike dispositions and raanffold collisions. The confusion
kept increasing, and finally the work so outgrew the founder
that it threatened to overwhelra hira. Let us not trace
any farther the sad picture of the dissolution which still
stands vividly before the minds of all ; nor will we here stir
up the unpleasant contests which filled our public jour
nals before the raore important political disorders engrossed
the public mind. Pestalozzi has been elevated above thera.
After the aboUtion of the institution in 1825, he returned to
Neuhof, where he had coraraenced his activity, and there
spent the remainder of his days in the house of his grand-
chUd, his only descendant. He died at Bruges, February 1 7,
1827, a few years before the outbreak ofthe poUtical storras.
On the 19th his body was buried in the snow-covered earth
bf Bin, with quiet, unostentatious funeral services, and the
simple songs of the viUage youth.
We cannot here exaraine the raethod itself, which aims
at the coraplete development of raan, as its raain object,
conesponding with that towards which the age, with its
caU for huraanity, was pressing. Besides, the raost of us
are faraihar witli the most important principles of this
method, and rauch to which Pestalozzi gave the first irapulse
is stUl used in our schools and farailies, though very properly
vrith many restrictions and araplifications. The aim of
modern education is Uving instruction, instead of the dead
mechanism killing the spirit, and also the conscious and
skUfiil manageraent of the siraplest eleraents of our thinking
in number, word, and form ; and though a new mechanism
has frequently planted itself by the side of the old, though
the letter has attempted to gain the ascendancy over the
spirit, still, upon the whole, the public schools of Gerraany
and Switzerland have made considerable progress. We do not
mean to say that this was all accomplished by Pestalozzi. It

262 SALZMANN, CAMPE, ETC.
has been shown that the most of what he introduced into
practice had already been advanced by others at an earlier
period, as Rousseau, Basedow, and Comenius. But it has
been trulj'^ said, that what Rousseau attempted only vrith
an iraaginary pupil was applied, with raodifications, of course,
by Pestalozzi to real ones, and that he gathered the scattered
ideas into a focus. It is so with all new ideas. It can
even be said of Christianity, that many of its teachings
and moral laws afready existed, and so, too, before the
tirae of Luther others had thought of the reformation of the
church. But who is not rerainded ofthe egg of Columbus in
this connection ? The very thing that connects a raemorable
deed with a raan and his narae is that where others guess,
think, doubt, expect, hope, and try, he acts decidedly, and
with lightning power, and puts into practice what to others
was only type and shadow and raere theory, gives the thought
word, the woid flesh and blood, and makes it a reality. In
this raatter the services of raen are, of course, to be praised
less than the Providence which always sends the chosen per
son, at the proper tirae, to perform its bidding, as with Pes
talozzi, then lets him retire, so that others raay complete
what he coraraenced. We have yet to forra an estimate of
Pestalozzi's position in reference to Christianity, and especi
aUy its evangelica] Protestant forra.
, That Pestalozzi, as well as Basedow, Salzmann, and Campe,
¦ opposed the comraon course of the so-called orthodoxy, which
thought the whole work was accoraplished when it had
beaten the Catechism into the heads of the children, and which,
in spite of all its orthodoxy, forgot the true faith, and, above
all, true love ; and that he opposed the conupt Christianity of
raeraory and forraulas, or the "paper-science," as he called it,
no one can blarae him. In this nothing but Protestantism
can be seen, which regards the essence more than the form,
and the spirit more than the letter. But it is another ques
tion how far this essence was clear to his own mind, and in
how far his work proceeded frora the inraost spirit of Chris
tianity. We are perraitted to express our doubts, whether he under
stood the nature of Christianity in its full iraportance, the
raore freely, because he himself as late as 1 820 acknowledged.

SALZMANN, CAMPE, ETC. 263
" TUl the end of my days I shall remain in a kind of ob
scurity as far as raost of ray views are concerned, but in a
holy obscurity, the only light in which I can live." These
words are the key with which rauch may be unlocked.
Still in this obscurity raany stars rose which inspired hira
vrith courage while journeying over the hard road marked
out for hira. Whoever searches in Pestalozzi for the theolo
gian or the dograatist, who can give an exact account of his
faith, seeks in vain. He differs from Basedow, Carape, and
Salzmann, since he did not attempt to theologize, or to render
Christianity rational, as they did.^ He was too little inter
ested in this, since he wished to apply all things directly to
life ; and he was as little satisfied by the comraon rationalisra
as by orthodoxy.
In religion Pestalozzi was siraply an eraotional being, a
chUd of irapressions. The religious feeling seeraed rather to
come on hira in raoraents of inspiration than in those of re
flection, and failed to control his entire nature uniforraly. He
therefore exerted the greatest religious influence over others
in such moments as in prayer ; and that he could pray fer
vently was acknowledged by those even who attacked his
Christianity. And though the religious exercises of the insti
tution were less edifying, and for the raost part confined to
moralizing, stUl Pestalozzi did not favour this ; he laraented
that the Bible was so little read, and said it had been
different in his day. Nor was this state of things iraproved ;
hut according to an official report by a coraraittee appointed
by the Diet in 1810, it is repeatedly asserted that for those
who are to be confirmed, the proper instruction in Christi
anity is to begin after a course of instruction in natural reli
gion, and only by special request of the parents. By this
means Christianity was, of course, taken frora the institu
tion, instead of being a light to all in the house.
But it raust be reraembered that at this tirae Christianity
was in such a crisis that it was difficult for individuals, in
the great confusion of opinions, to get correct notions of
' He taught that " Faith must proceed from faith, and not from the know
ledge and understanding of the things believed ; love must proceed from love,
and not from the knowledge of love and what is lovely ; and art, too, must pro
ceed from ability, and not from mere talk of ability and art."

264 SALZMANN, CAMPE, ETC.
raatters. Pestalozzi expressed hiraself variously in reference
to Christianity. At one tirae he says, " I regard it as
nothing else than the purest and noblest raodification of the
doctrine of elevating the spirit above the fiesh, and this doc
trine I regard as the great raystery, and only possible means
by which the inraost nature of our being raay be truly en
nobled, or, to speak more plainly, the raeans of attaining the
dominion over the flesh through the inner development of the
purest feelings of love. This I believe to be the essence of
Christianity ; but I do not think that raany persons are,
according to their nature, capable of becoraing Christians," and
he really confesses that he is not a Christian, because he did not
flnd in hiraself the ability to attain to self-perfection by that
conquering of the flesh. But at another tirae he acknow
ledges Christ as the only High Priest who has taught us to
worship God in spirit and in truth ; he even speaks of an
adoration of Christ as a necessary condition for becoming
his disciple, and wishes for himself and huraanity that
the blessed days raight retum in which men could truly
rejoice in the Redeeraer. In his report to the public in
1820 he says, "I consider a thorough knowledge of the
Scriptural histories, and especially of the Ufe, sufferings, and
death of Jesus Christ, and the study of the subliraest pas
sages of the Bible with a childlike, believing spirit, the begin
ning and essence of what is necessary for religious instruction,
and then above all things a fatherly care to raake the children
feel the worth of prayer oflered in faith." It raay be seen
from an address delivered to his household in 1818, how
rauch, in his more advanced age, Pestalozzi was penetrated by
'faith, and that he thought the salvation of the world as weU
as his household was to be expected only from Christ — and
in this the essence of Christianity certainly consists, however
differently it may be viewed by different rainds. After
the old raan of seventy-three had held, as it were, a gene
ral confession, and had appealed to the hearts of all for
the institution, already beginning to sink, he closes vrith
these words : " ' Love one another, as Christ has loved us.'
' Charity suffereth long, and is kind ; charity envieth not ;
charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave
itseff unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked.

SALZMANN, CAMPE, ETC. 265
thinketh no evil ; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in
the truth; beareth aU things, believeth all things, hopeth all
things, endureth aU things.' Friends ! Brethren ! ' Bless
them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, heap
coals of ffre on the heads of your enemies, let not the sun go
down on your wrath ; when thou bringest thy gift to the
altar, flrst be reconciled to thy brother, and then corae and
offer thy gift.' "
" Let all relentless severity be far frora our house, let it
not even be exercised towards those who treat us with injustice.
Let all huraan severity be lost in the mildness of our faith.
Let no one say that Christ did not love hira who was sinful
and did v^ong. He did love hira. He loved him with a
divine love. He died for hira. He did not call the righteous
but sinners to repentance. He did not find the sinner a
believer, but made him such, gave hira faith through His
own faith. He did not find hira hurable. He raade hira
humble by His huraility. Verily, verily, it is with the sub-;
hme, divine service of humility that He conquered the pride
of sinners, and fastened thera by faith to His divine, loving
heart. Friends ! Brethren ! If we do this, if we love oue
another, as Christ loved us, we shall overcorae all the diffi
culties that oppose the aim of our lives, and shall be able to
found the welfare of our house on that eternal rock on which
God, Himself has founded the welfare of huraanity through
Jesus Christ."
After having atterapted to give a picture of Pestalozzi hira
self, especially in his relation to Christianity, the question yet
remains how far his activity influenced the entire character
and tendency of the age. At first view this influence does
not appear to have been so very great, if we think only on
Pestalozzi's method in its strict form. This was as rauch
opposed on the one hand as applauded on the other. And
this opposition was not only raanifested on the part of the
orthodox, but those even who yielded to a rationalistic raode
of thinking, as Nierneyer, felt it their duty to call attention
to the disadvantages and one-sided application of the method,
while they were perfectly just to the person of Pestalozzi.
We think the influence of Pestalozzi on his age was much
greater than siraply that produced by his method. It is

266 SALZMANN, CAMPE, ETC.
nearly the sarae with him as it was with Kant and his
philosophy. Relatively speaking, there were but few real
Kantians adhering to the system in all its particulars; and yet
we have seen that Kantisra had a very great influence on the
times, so that many, without either knowing or intending it,
thought in a Kantian manner. It frequently seeras as if cer
tain ideas, when once suggested, dwell in the air, and are
breathed by humanity. This was the case with those ad
vanced by Pestalozzi. Although it was atterapted, even
during his life, to deprive hira of the sceptre ; and though
there was rauch discussion about the raeaning and availa
bility of his raethod, still the irapulse he gave to popular
education was lasting, and the interest taken in it since the
da.ys of Rousseau and Basedow, becarae still raore general,
and spread into all classes of society.
Formerly education had been left to the Church, but since
Pestalozzi had written the " Mother's Book," no mother
wished to be behind the requirements of the age. And as
parental education began to place itself raore on an inde
pendent footing, public education began to do the same, on
which account there were many collisions with the Church.
According to report, the education of the Church had in it
soraething contracting and obscure; now it was desired that
the capacious and cheerful schoolroom should forra a contrast
to the Gothic twilight of the churches which, like all other
raysterious things of the age, had becorae uninteUigible, and
on that account uncorafortable. It was the boast of the im
provers of the world that the salvation of future ages was to
radiate frora the schools; they wanted the old Church to die
out with the old people and the old rainisters.
It raay easily be seen that not only the raethod of educa
tion had changed, but the entire view of the life and nature of
children, and thus also the notion of raan's nature and the
developraent of which it is capable. In forraer periods little
was said of the hopes placed in the rising generations; but
raany complaints were heard that the times were continually
growing woise, that " the young had no virtue," and similar
things. It was then regarded as the chief object of education
to make children old and " sedate" before the proper time,
and to break the wiU early. In all petulancy, and frequently

SALZMANN, CAMPE, ETC. 267
even in the eraotions of a very happy disposition, it was
thought the traces of original sin were visible, which could
not be destroyed speedily and radicaUy enough. It was
thought that real wisdora dwelt only with the old, with the
fathers who had grown hoary in the service of God, and
under severe chastiseraents ; but how often were old custoras
taken for genuine piety ! What a different aspect things now
began to wear ! Now the old seeraed to be quite obsolete ;
and if it was forraerly atterapted to raake the children old,
now the old were to be rejuvenated. Pestalozzi hiraself was
a hving eA.raple of this renewed youthfulness.
There is something beautiful and refreshing in this hope in
youth, and it has Christ's word in its favour : " Except ye be
come as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdora of
heaven." This saying of tbe Lord had either not been heard
by the good old tiraes, or it had not been taken to heart pro
perly, lest the doctrine of original sin and natural depravity
might lose soraething. But it is always easy to go frora one
extreme to the other. What was called a juvenile sense was
soon overestimated, even the impertinences of youth were con
sidered lovely ; and where formerly natural , depravity had
been discovered, now the germs of precocious talent were seen.
Impudence and dissoluteness, which appeared in a very glaring
manner, and continually increased in Pestalozzi's institutions,
were looked upon as the raanifestations of youthful love' of
Uberty, and the " Liberty and Equality," which was more
and raore discussed in the world at large, was iraitated in the
school and family circle. The young were fondled, and told
to their face, that they were wiser than the old, who had be
come musty, and had sunk into raechanism ; they were incited
to criticise, and were taught to reason instead of being taught
to obey. This also had an influence on the religious instruc
tion. Wliile formerly Luther's catechism, the use of which
Herder had still advocated, or in Reforraed countries the
Heidelberg Catechisra had afforded the only so-caUed " railk
diet for youth," now the old catechisras disappeared, and new
ones took their places, which were, however, soon found to be
more tedious and less practical than tbe old. Since the days
of Salzmann and Campe, the Uterary market was flooded with
vmtings for youth, so that, as Lichtenberg wittily remarked.

268 SALZMANN, CAMPE, ETC.
the raen were soon forgotten on account of the children. In
the most of these writings the raorality either of utiUty or
sentiraentality was raade specially prominent. The sublime
scriptural accounts were pushed into the background by the
light stuff of flctitious stories, such as are still written by
the thousand, and of which but little is distinguished for
being really childlike in its sense and general tone. Even
Carape, in his " Robinson," soraetimes stops in the very heart
of the story, to tire his young readers with raoral conversa
tions, which are of course oraitted by the raost intelligent.
Instead of the precocious orthodoxy which it was tfiought had
manifested itself in the forraer youth, a still raore precocious
moralism and rationalisra now was likely to appear, which
were raore injurious than the old catechisra-religion.
John George Haraann, the " Magician of the North," as his
friends called hira, is one of those raen of whora it is difficult
to give an estiraate conect and satisfactory in all respects.
Our estiraation of his character cannot be blended with our
general opinion of the age, as may be done with many other
men, because he stood rugged and alone, like a rocky island
in the raidst of the waves of the sui-rounding ocean. As we
cannot wholly praise or blame that age, we shall not admire,
rauch less censure, all in Hainann. He will always interest
us greatly as an original, powerful, and penetrating mind,
though we shall not persuade ourselves that the obscure, the
crude and strange in his works must, because we do not
comprehend it, be secrets so rauch the greater, behind which
an un fathoraed depth of knowledge raay lie, nor that
the unpalatable sheU must necessarily contain a kernel so
rnuch the sweeter. But we shall first form an idea of the
man chiefiy frora his own confessions and writings.
J. G. Haraann was born at Koenigsberg, the 27th of
August 1730. Having received a coramon education, under
the guardianship of his parents, both in school and from
private tutors, he paid particular attention to the study of
the ancient classics. "Several of the principal and most
difficult Latin and Greek authors were run over several
times," according to his own statement ; still Hamann does
not extol the effect of this phUological training. " I could
translate Latin into German without understanding either

SALZMANN, CAMPE, ETC. 269
the language or sense of the author ; my Latin and Greek
compositions were printer's work, raere jugglery, in which
the memory was overfed, and a decay of the other intel
lectual powers ensued, because healthful and proper chyle was
wanting." We thus find in him the same opposition to the
old school system, though in other respects he did not agree
with the Philanthropists. At the age of eighteen he entered
the university of his native city. It was intended that he
should study theology ; " but," he says, " I found a hindrance
in ray slow speech and weak meraory, and raany feigned
obstacles in my mode of thinking, the low morals of the
clergy, and the importance which I attached to the duties
of the rainisterial office." He also soon abandoned the study
of law, and devoted hiraself entirely to that of antiquity and
polite literature. After corapleting his academic course he
became tutor in Livonia, for which position, however, he
seemed to have little skiU ; he was disraissed in a very rough
manner by the gracious mother. He now spent sorae time
in Riga, as he sa3's, " in wild industry and idleness." After
making another vain attempt as tutor, he found sorae noble
friends here, of whom the mercantile house of Berens, and
the rector "in Riga, Dr Lindner, were the raost prorainent.
" Disgusted with the school-dust," he was now induced to
study coraraercial science and political economy, with which
he occupied hiraself, however, only a short period. After the
death of his raother he coramenced travelling. In Berlin he
made the acquaintance of Mendelssohn, and then went to try
his fortune in London. Here he threw himself into the whirl
of a dissolute life.^ He spent a long while in intemal misery,
without finding any one to whom to coraraunicate his feel
ings. In this restlessness he took refuge in prayer; he asked
God to show hira a friend, and this friend he found in the
Bible, and through it in Christ. " The raore I read it," he
says, " the newer the Word of God seemed to me, the more
divine I found the contents and their influence., I forgot all

'-b^

' "I ate aud drank excessively in vain, was dissolute in vain, ran about in
vain. Intemperance and refiection, reading and knavery, diligence and idle
ness, were alternated in vain; I was extravagant and wanton in both in vain.
During nine months I changed my lodgings nearly every month, found peace
nowhere, all were deceptive, low, selfish people."

270 SALZMANN, CAMPE, ETC.
ray other books, was asharaed that I had ever preferred them
to the Book of God. I found the unity of the Divine will
in the rederaption by Jesus Christ, and that all history,
all rairacles, and aU the laws and works of God raeet in
this centre to raise the soul of raan frora the slavery, the
blindness, the folly, and death of sin, to the greatest blessed
ness." One evening, quite lost in the contemplation of Scripture,
he read the account of Cain's fratricide ; he felt his heart beat
while reading, heard a voice sobbing and groaning in its
depths, and felt sure that he was the murderer, for he had
coraraitted this crirae against the only begotten Son of
God. He was greatly distressed, and, with tears, confessed
his sins to God ; but " the Spirit of God," he says, " in spite
of ray great weakness, and the long opposition which I
had waged against His influence, continued to reveal to me
raore and raore of the raysteries of Divine love, and the
blessings of faith in our gracious and only Saviour." He
continued the reading of the Bible with redoubled diligence.
and increased devotion, and received spiritual blessings there
frora. " God be praised," he says, " ray heart is calmer than
ever before in my life. When threatened with dejection of
spirits, I have been flooded with a comfort, of which I cannot
ascribe the source to myseff, and which no human being has
the power of infusing so abundantly into the hearts of his
fellow-men. It swallowed up aU fear, all sadness and mis
trust, so that I could no longer flnd any trace of them in
my raind."
Haraann's essay on the fortunes of his own life extend to
this conversion, which in raany respects calls to raind Saint
Augustine. All that reraains to be added is briefly the fol
lowing : Haraann returned frora London to Riga with the
intention of devoting hiraself entirely to the house of Berens.
He was, however, soon caUed to Koenigsberg by his sick and
aged father. Soon after this a difficulty arose between him
and that house, which led to a coraplete rupture, a variance
in which the charge of ingratitude raust alraost unavoidably
fall on Hamann. It is not seldora that a negligence of all
human affairs follows in the train of a reliaious mode of
thinking produced in a violent raanner, and duty to man

SALZMANN, CAMPE, ETC. 271
has been forced to yield to the pressure of a devotion dis
regarding all hinderances ! This, indeed, appeared to be
the case with Hamann. It is difficult to forra a judgraent
here, and we may caU to raind the significant sentence,
which is, of course, frequently appUed too rashly, and in
the wrong place — that Christ came not to bring peace, but
the sword.
From this tirae Haraann lived with his father in Koenigs
berg, and pubUshed his first works. Kant, whose raode of
thinking was very different frora that of Haraann, esteeraed
his superior raental powers, and nurabered him among his
friends. We have afready raentioned his raore intiraate
friendship with Herder. " In those blessed years," Haraann
says, " I leamed how to study, and have lived a long while
upon the harvest gathered at that tirae." His external cir
cumstances were not, however very favourable. He divided
his time between the work of copying hi the Chancery, and
assisting in the publication of the Koenigsberg newspaper.
Afterwards, having in vain looked about in a foreign land for
some occupation, he obtained a situation in the excise office, and
after ten years raore becarae the manager of a custom-house,
and thus, in his own language, as an invalid of Apollo, he
was favoured with the office of a publican. As, however, in
1782 a con.siderable part of his salary was withdrawn, owing
to a change in the anangeraents of the house, he lived with
four children in the greatest want. He was delivered frora
this exigency by Lavater. This friend procured a respectable
capital for hira frora a wealthy young raan in Westphalia,
Frank Buchholz, which placed hira in easy circurastances,
Hamann lived in Muenster part of the tirae with his
benefactor, and the rest with the philosopher, F. H. Jacobi,
in Dusseldorf His acquaintance with the Princess Gallitzin
belongs to this period. As he was about to return to Koenigs
berg, the 20th of June 1788, he suddenly fell into a state
of debUity, which resulted in death the following day. He
was fifty-eight years of age when he died. He was never
manied in the political-ecclesiastical sense, but lived in a
" marriage of conscience" as he called it. Haraann's life in
O
general raakes the irapression of a personality in which Chris-

272 SALZMANN, CAMPE, ETC.
tianity worked raore Uke a foreign volcanic power than like
an inner principle that regulated and determined the whole
course of his life, Frora his ferraenting inner nature, sublime
thoughts and emotions, resolutions and bright flashes burst
forth ; but it never attains to a quiet developraent and har
raonious culture. Hence, with all the piety of his heart,
his life was not free frora much that is objectionable. In
this respect, too, he forraed a decided contrast to rational
isra, which places the raoral conduct of a raan higher than
all other things, and where it finds this it is satisfied
with a raeagre inner life, while in the case of Hamann one
raight feel inclined to forget raany moral defects on account
of the fulness of the inner life. Both are imperfect manifes
tations of Christianity, which consists in moral piety as well
as pious morality.
Haraann's literary activity was confined chiefly to short
piquant articles pubUshed frora time to tirae. For large works
he had neither time nor power, both of which were very much
dissipated. His conteraporaries took but little notice of the
northern raagician. Herder regarded hira very highly, he-
cause he had received fr-ora him the raost powerful inteUectual
irapulse. " The kernel of Haraann's writings," he says, " con
tains many germs of great truths, as well as new observations,
and an evidence of remarkable erudition; the sheU thereof is
a laborious^ woven web of pithy expressions, of hints and
flowers of rhetoric." " His understanding," says F. H. Jacobi,
" was penetrating like lightning, and his soul was of raore than
natural greatness.'' Hamann called his own authorship dumb
mimicry, and corapared himself to a rainer digging for treasures
in the depths of the earth ; he even acknowledged that much
of what he had written was afterwards unintelligible to 'him.
Goethe, who was not personaUy acquainted with Hamann,
says of hira, " He was of course regarded as an abstruse
enthusiast by those who swayed the literature of the day
(Nicolai and his consorts) ; aspiring youth was, however,
attracted by him. Even the quiet of the land, as they were
called, half in sport, half in earnest, those pious souls who,
without joining any particular sect, forraed an invisible
church, gave hira thefr attention. Goethe, however, also

SALZMANN, CAMPE, ETC. 273
hints that the satirical huraour, to which Haraann gave free
course in his writings, repelled the raore strict.
In the history of the religious development, Haraann's great
ness is of a peculiar kind, which cannot well be fitted into any
existing frarae. It will, therefore, perhaps be best to let him
speak for himself, and we will close this sketch with some of
his pithy expressions, without regarding a systeraatic arrange
ment, for his raode of writing was the aphoristic. The raost
of it, especially that which refers to religion, is in direct
opposition to the rationalistic and shaUow tendencies of that
age. Thus, he says of the frequently discussed relation of
reason to revelation : " Let us not judge of the truth of things
according to the ease with which we represent thera to our
minds. There are actions of a higher order, for which no
expression can be given by the eleraents of this world. Not
only the end but tlie entire career of a Christian is the mas
ter-piece of an unknown Genius, whora heaven and earth
recognizes as the only Creator, Mediator, and Sustainer, and
will recognize in a glorified human form. Our life, it is
said, is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, our life, shall
appear, then shall we also appear with hira in glory.
He will corae to be glorified in His saints, and to be admired
in all them that believe. How much will the joy of those
who love His appearing surpass that of the wise men of the
East when they saw the star." Haraann did not judge very
favourably of his age. " The last century," he says, " was
the reign of genius; the next will probably (?) bloom under
the sceptre of sound reason. What a sad figure the knights
of the present make between the two ! Pretty rauch like
that of an ape or parrot, between a buffalo and lion.''
" An age in which words are threshed, and sraall and great
attempts raade to feel thoughts and to coraprehend feelings, is
called the philosophical. Is this done to expose our age or
philosophy to sharae ? Do persons, by this means, want to im
pose on theraselves or their neighbours ?" " Reason reveals no
more to us than was seen by Job, the raisery of our birth, the
uselessness and insufficiency of life, since we have no know
ledge, and many passions and instincts, whose object is un
known to us." " What is rehgion but pure sound reason,
which was stifled and confused by the faU, and which tbe
s

274 SALZMANN, CAMPE, ETC.
Spirit of God seeks to restore in us, after it has rooted up the
weeds and prepared the soil, and purified it again for the
reception of the seed of heaven." " We are still incomplete.
Our reason raust wait and hope, must be content to be servant,
not strive to be lawgiver. . . . Experience and revelation
are the sarae, they are indispensable wings or crutches of our
reason, if this is not to continue to be lame or to creep."
" The revealed religion of Christianity is very properly called
faith, assurance, confident and childlike trust in the divine
word and proraises, and in the progress of a life developing
frora glory to glory to the full unveiUng of the raysteries,
hid and believed frora the beginning."
" God has revealed hiraself to raan in nature and in his
Word. . . . These two revelations explain and confirm,
but cannot contradict, each other, however rauch this may be
done by the interpretations given of them by our reason.
It is the greatest contradiction and abuse of reason, if it
attempts to reveal. The philosopher, who rejects the divine
Word for the sake of reason, is like the Jews who reject the
New Testament the more firraly they appear to cling to the
Old. In them the prophecy is fulfilled, that that is a stumb
ling block and foolishness, which ought to serve as a confirma
tion and fulfilment of their other views. History and natural
philosophy are the two pillars on which Christianity rests.
Infidelity is founded on a superficial history and natural
philosophy. Nature is as little subjected to blind chance,
or external laws, as all events can be explained by character
and reasons of state." " The treasures of nature are but
an allegory, a raythological picture of heavenly .systems,
just as all the events of profane history are outlines of
secret actions and discovered wonders." " If God intended to
reveal hiraself to raen and to the entfre human race, the foUy
of those must be the raore evddent, who want to make a
liraited taste and their own judgraent the touchstone of tbe
divine Word. The question is not concerning a revelation
which a Voltaire, a Bolmgbroke, or Shaftesbury, would think
worthy of their acceptance, and which would best satisfy their
prejudices, their wit, and their raoral, politica], and epic whims;
Lut conceming a discovery of such truths in the certainty,
credibility, and iraportance of which the whole race would be

SALZMANN, CAMPE, ETC. 275
interested. Those who have so much confidence in their own
understanding, that they think they can dispense with a
divine instruction, would have found mistakes in every other
revelation, and have need of none. They are the whole that
need no physician."
Other passages, in which he opposes the pride of his age,
might be cited. Let us, however, add only a few, referring
to the contents of Christianity, in which he uses the poleraic
dart less, and enters upon his subject raore with his whole
soul. " The Christian only is a living raan, because he lives
in and with God, raoves and has his being in Hira." " It is
only through God that our hearts love the brethren, and that
we are Uberal towards them. Unless we know Christ, we
have advanced no farther than the heathen. In that worthy
name, from which we are called Christians, are centred aU the
wonders and raysteries and works of faith, and true reU
gion. This worthy narae is the only key of knowledge,
which unlocks heaven and hell, and the heights and depths of
the human heart." "Unbelief, in reference to Christ, raakes
our hearts cold, and confuses all the notions of our reason,
while we dream of a good heart within, and a rational raode
of thinking." " The righteousness of Christ is not a bodice,
but an arraour, to which a warrior accustoms himself, like a
Maecenas to his loose dress." " Criticisra is a schoolmaster
leading to Christ. As soon as faith originates in us the bond
woman is cast out, and the law ceases ; then the spintual
man judges, and his taste is safer than all the rules of
philology and logic." In accordance with this principle,
which ought certainly to be limited very rauch, Haraann
yielded to the inclination to allegorize, in which he, as he hira
self acknowledges, " driving along with full sail, often lost
sight of the letter." What he calls the spiritual raan is fre
quently nothing but the suggestion of his wit and excited
fancy. Let us close with some passages of Hamann on education.
Like Luther, he went back to the simple principles of Chris
tianity. " An upright schoolmaster must go to school, to God, and
to himseff, if he wants to put in practice the wisdom of his
office, he must iraitate God as He reveals Hiraseff in nature

276 SALZMANN, CAMPE, ETC.
and the Bible, and by raeans of both in our souls. . . .
The law of His husbandry of tirae, according to which He
patiently waits for the fruit, ought to l^e our rule of conduct.
Nothing depends on what or how much is known, but all on
how it is known. The means of instructing children cannot
be simple enough. There is always something superflu
ous, useless, and perishable about thera. They raust be rich
in results, raust erabrace a variety and fruitfulness for apphca
tion and practice."
" Every father in the Fatherland, and every citizen, ought
to have the subject of education at heart, for the seeds of
evils which curse public as well as private affairs, are raostly
sown and cultivated in our schools. Not only the wanton
worship of maranioii, and the slavish worship of arms, but
also the chiraera of beautiful nature, of good taste and sound
reason, have introduced prejudices, which partly exhaust,
partly suffocate in their birth the vital spirits of the human
race, and the weal of civil society.''
" It seeras as if the instruction in schools was invented to
raake learning disgusting and useless." " The best method
for instructing children consists in descending to their weak
nesses, in becoraing their servant if we want to be thefr
raaster, in obeying if we want to govern thera, and in learning
their language, and understanding their souls, if we want to
exert an influence over them. But it is neither possible to
understand nor to practice this practical principle, unless we
are fond of children, and love thera, without knowing exactly
why," " Whoever wants to write for children must not be
asharaed to eraploy the wonderful Mosaic history."
Whilst Haraann gained the favour of strictly orthodox
Christians less through an amiable personality, which gives
pleasure by its very appearance, than by means of inteUectual
flashes which shine through the raysterious diraness of his
inner nature, and also sustained the hope that all the positive
contents of the Reformation were not entirely lost ; in
Claudius, the universaUy known " Wandsbecker Messenger,"
on the other hand, we meet a raan who could open the heart,
-with his araiable huraour as with a charra, and with his
" humble, roguish cordiality " could also gain the favour, I
might say, could bribe, those whose religious opinion differed

SALZMANN, CAMPE, ETC. 277
from his own. Here the thought again forces itself on us,
that the great contrarieties of the Protestant Christian world
were not fought out exclusively, or even chiefly, by theo
logians, but others entered the contest on both sides, and
assisted in giving the decision. Here, too^ it was a " homme
des lettres," as Claudius ironically called himself, who
appeared as an apologist of Christianity, in spite of those
other polite scholai-s and philosophers who attacked it
m toto or in part. A prepossession was thus awakened in
favour of Christianity ; and just as at a former period it was
a favourable indication that the cheerful fabulist and play-
writer Gellert was also the author of such beautiful spiritual
songs, so now raany a cheerful raan of the world would rather
listen to the author of the " Rhine wine song '' than to
the most zealous preacher, whora he raight suspect of
defending Christianity only for the sake of his office, and
his daily bread. A poet who even ventured to relate
Scriptural anecdotes, as the story of the giant Goliath, in the
grotesque-coraical, baUad-singer style, was welcoraed as one of
thefr own nuraber by rainds who loved to exercise their
wit on such subjects ; but how soon did they discover that
the man who could jest so easily would not perrait sport to
be raade with subjects whose holiness deraands the deepest
seriousness. Here, therefore, was discovered, not as is so
often the case, a wolf in sheep's clothing, but, behind the
mask of apparent frivoUty, a pure, chaste, lamb-like nature
and dove-like simplicity. Claudius, like Luther, understood
the high art of treating divine things with an innocent plea
santry, because he raight be said to be on farailiar terras with
God. He was artless in the noblest sense of the word, and in
this sirapUcity he could say much, which, if said by others,
would have given offence, and which, when imitated, always
becoraes insipid. Thus he did not oppose those scoffing at
Christianity with a frowning brow, nor the assuraing " Illu
minati " with a pedantic orthodoxy ; he rather opposed the
sickly philosophy with his sound, solid mother-wit, the stiff
learning of the schools with his plain, coramon sense, and the
insolent satire of wickedness with the cheerful irony of
his child-like innocence. Of " the Wandsbecker Messenger,"
F. H. Jacobi says, he " is a real messenger of God ; his Christ-

278 SALZMANN, COMPTE, ETC.
anity is as old as the world. His faith is not raerely the
siraplest and highest philosophy to him, but soraething stiU
higher. He appears in life just as in his writings ; sublime
only in secret, full of pleasantrj- and roguery in social inter
course ; but he does not fail to let serious words drop, strik
ing, penetrating words, when raind and heart teU him, now
is the tirae and proper occasion."
We will, therefore, not despise inquiring about this simple
Messenger, in order to see in how far he was a raessenger of
God or of peace in his age pointing to the right human
and divine course. Hamann said he considered him a fool who
denied the existence of God, but he deemed that man a still
greater one who wanted to prove His existence, and Claudius
also attacked this passion for demonstration in general, this
strutting about with arguraents and counter-arguments in the
departraent of religion. " No one can say with a shadow of
truth that I am a philosopher ; but I never go through a
forest without wondering who raakes the trees grow, and
then quietly frora afar I have a kind of consciousness of an
Unknown One, and I would then be wilUng to affirm that I
think of God, I trerable so reverently, so joyfuUy at the
thought." But he did not stop with this natural religion.
The raore definite Christian feeling of the favour of redemp
tion is iraraediately connected with the feeling of the nearness
of God. Both are the sarae to hira. In the forest and under
the stany heavens he walks about in a Christian temple, in
which the forra of the Son of man raeets him and offers him
His hand. " I was on a journey last night," he writes in
his joumal on the raoming of a Good-Friday. " The moon
shone soraewhat cold on ray body ; she was, however, bright
and beautiful, so that I rejoiced greatly to behold her, and
could not see her enough. Eighteen hundred years ago, I
thought to rayself, yon certainly did not shine thus, for it
would have been irapossible for raen to have injured a right
eous, innocent raan in the face of so friendly, so mild a
moon." He also honours and loves Socrates, and would not tear
frora his brow the wreath he deserves. But though truth is
the same at all tiraes, still it appears to him an exaggerated
tolerance to desire to make the ancient philosophers Chris
tians. It is, indeed, true, that aU true philosophers and meu

SALZMANN, COMPTE, ETC. 279
of God since the foundation of the world are connected with
Christ, as rivers with the ocean. But even John the Baptist,
who was most nearly related to Hira, only prepared the
way for Him. This is the reason, that he always feels like
kneeling, when he reads of Christ in any of the Gospels, .
and confesses, that though others raay be able to dispense
vrith Christ, he cannot ; he needs sorae one to raise and
support hirn while he lives, and to lay his hand under
his head when he dies. That which lived in Christ never
entered the heart of raan before. To hira Christ is a holy,
superhuraan being, .a star in the night, one who satisfies
our deepest wants and most secret longings and desires.
" One might suffer hiraself to be stigraatised, and broken on
the wheel even for the raere idea, and whoever can laugh and
mock raust be insane. Whoever has his heart in the right
place lies in the dust, rejoices and worships."
Claudius preserved this faith in Christ as feeling and ex
perience, as a reality felt in the heart, and avoided disputing
about the raatter. " It is incoraprehensible," he says, " that
men enter into such extensive debates with freethinkers and
sceptics, and talk so much about their freethinking and
passion for doubts. Christ says very briefly : ' If any man
vriU do His (God's) will, he shall know of the doctrine whether
it be of God, or whether I speak of rayseff.' Whoever cannot
or wiU not raake this atterapt, if he is a reasonable raan, or
desfres to be considered such, should not say another word for
or against Christianity." With his decidedly Christian con
victions, Claudius was thus opposed to an intolerant raania for
religious disputes, and knew how to make thera ridiculous
whatever forra they might assurae. "The spirit of reli
gion does not dwell in the shell of dograatics, has not its
abode in the children of unbelief, and can as little be gained
by wanton bounds of reason as by stiff orthodoxy and raonk-
hood  It is an honour to a people to be
strict and zealous in their religion ; but it is certainly not
more than reasonable to investigate before being zealous."
" To improve religion by raeans of reason (thus he lets Asraus
address his cousin Andres), appears to me like attempting to
fiet the sun by my old wooden clock ; still, philosophy ap
pears to me to be a very good thing, and I think much of

280 SALZMAN, COMPTE, ETC.
that which is charged against the orthodox is true." He
compares phUosophy to the broom which sweeps the dirt
out of the teraple. To this cousin Andres replies : " Philoso
phy is certainly good, and they are wrong who scoff at it,
but revelation does not bear to philosophy the relation of
rauch to little, but that of heaven and earth, of above and
below. Philosophy raay, in a certain sense, be such a broom
to sweep the cobwebs frora the temple ; we might call it a
brush used to sweep the dust frora the statues of saints ; but
when one attempts to carve on the statues with it he requires
more than it can perforra ; and it is highly absurd and pro
voking to see this attempted. . . . Since the holy statues
cannot be restored by reason, it is patriotic in a high sense to
retain the old form inviolate. ... In short, cousin, the truth
is a giant, lying asleep by the road-side ; those passing that
way, indeed, see his giant forra, but they cannot see him;
when he removes the veil you will see his countenance. Till
this is done, our comfort must be that he is under the veil,
and do thou, good cousin, , pass hira reverently and with
trembling, and do not 'criticise.'"
In his later years the tendency to preserve prevailed more
and more in Claudius, and like his friend Hamann he
atterapted to support Lutheranisra, and with it the Lutheran
doctrine of the Lord's Supper against the Reformed. But
neither in this matter does he lose his mildness and fairness
towards those differing frora hira, and even acknowledges
that Luther went too far in his zeal against those of a different
opinion. The best proof that Claudius knew how to estimate
what is really Christian in all the various confessions, is his
characteristic of Fenelon, preflxed to the second volurae of his
translation of this excellent raan's works. He expected
continually less and less good frora the rationaUstic and de
structive tendency, which wanted to resolve the positive in
all Confessions into soraething general and rational, which may
be accepted by all, and hence must be unsatisfactory to aU.
He thought raen would do better if they attempted to bring
reason in harraony with faith, than ff they sought to make
faith rational; it would bring thera raore blessings, and cer
tainly more honour. He was certain of one thing, " There is
one truth and only one. From it nothing can be taken by

FREDERIC WILLIAM JOSEPH SCHELLING. 281
force, and it forces itself on no one ; it however, iraparts itself
more or less if sought with huraility and self-denial, with
fear and trerabUng, as the apostles say. Those who atterapt
to do it violence, and to raake truth arbitrarily, torraent
themselves in vain, and are like a reed that is shaken by the
wind. Human works, like all other things of this world,
waver and change. Truth remains and does not waver."
Thus Claudius wrote in 1812; he died in Haraburg in
the house of his son-in-law, Perthes, in 1815, being 7 5 years
of age.

XVIII.
FREDERIC WILLIAM JOSEPH SCHELLING.^
SCHELLING AND THE "NATURPHILOSOPHIE." PANTHEISM
AND SEEMING ORTHODOXY.
Kant, Fichte, and Schelling are the prorainent naraes in the
history of raodern philosophy. We have already spoken of
Kant and Fichte. SchelUng yet reraains to be considered.
And here, for the first tirae, we deal with a person still araong
the U-ring (1849). . . . I had deterrained to avoid doing
this, and shall adhere to this resolution as far as possible. But
when an author survives his works, these already belong to
history, even while he lives. This is true of the older
phUosophy of SchelUng, to which we confine our remarks.
It is a finished work, and to be regarded as an important
element, separate frora its author, and having passed into the
history of philosophy, is therefore coraraon property, over
which the author has no longer any control, though he has
the privilege of renouncing it hiraseff. The systera of
Schelling, as it appeared, in distinction frora the phUosophy
of Kant and Fichte, under the narae of Philosophy of Nature
(Natur-philosophie) the philosophy of the Absolute, or
' See Appendix A.

282 FREDERIC WILLIAM JOSEPH SCHELLING.
philosophy of identity, is a historical fact which can no more
be blotted frora the history of science, than a victorious battle
frora political history. Therefore, we will speak of Schelling's
systera without referring to his personal history.
The thinking mind could not rest satisfied wdth the ideal
isra of Fichte. But as little as this idealisra could last, so
little could it pass away without leaving a trace ; and what
ever it had that is true and excellent, naraely, the glorifica
tion of the coramon reality through the inner act of the spirit,
reraained as real gain ; for, with all the reality of the world,
with all the richness of its forras, with the continual change
of its appearances, that it is man who sees it with human
eyes, while to the aniraal it only appears as a shapeless mass,
that it is our Ego which reflects itself in the world, as well
as the world in our Ego, that we first impress nature with the
stamp of divinity by discovering the kernel of the super
natural through the shell of the sensible — these are raental
experiences, which can never be taken away, and which first
give Ufe a higher charra, in opposition to a spiritless, thought
less objectivity, which conteraplates life externally, without
placing it in a relation to our innner self. The mind
a;Wakened frora its idealistic dreara turned again to nature and
its phenomena ; but it no longer regarded nature as a dead
machine, driven by extemal forces ; it now knew a nature
intellectuaUy animated, a nature with whicii God does not
only now and then interfere, to work a mira,cle, but a nature
in which God expresses hiraself every moraent, which He
really penetrates, fills and aniraates. In a word, God and
the world, raind and nature, the life v\'ithout, vrithin, and
over us, are no longer to be separated frora each other by
strong barriers, but in our consciousness are to be placed in a
living relation, and to affect each other by reciprocal action.
This was the problem to be solved in the period after Fichte,
and Schelling has undoubtedly done most for its solution. As
Fichte had at first attached himself to Kant, so Schelling at
first attached hiraself to Fichte, whora he had heard in Jena;
but soon he left that Idealisra which regards the world as the
reflection of our raind. The essence of nature is the mind
itself, even ff in the lower grades of development, it is stfll
a slumbering, dreaming mind which, however, awakes more

FREDERIC -WILLIAM JOSEPH SCHELLING. 283
and more, till flnally in the man it comes to a consciousness
of itseff. Nature and Spirit are, therefore, not separated
things ; they are but the poles of one and the sarae life, which
appears here as raoving, there as raoved, here as creating,
there as created, here as free, there as necessitated. That
which animates and moves this great organisra, is the raun
dane soul, which is reflected in the human. Man is the
world in a small corapass, in hira the world repeats itself, as
God recognises hiraself in raan as God, so does the mundane
soul in the human soul.
These unconnected sentences raay suffice to show that
Schelling, in opposition to the spiritless, dead contemplation of
nature, found araong the rationalists as well as the orthodox,
' O '
and which prevailed in the preceding periods generally, intro
duced a living, poetical conteraplation of nature, full of anti
cipations and relations, which are a riddle to the dry under
standing, and raust for ever reraain so while they continually
force themselves upon the raan of intellectual activity. In
this consists the raerit of his philosophy. Poets and artists
will agree with it most readily. Natural philosophy, too, raay
be on friendly terras with it, although the thoughtful inquirer
will not so easily perrait his glance to be prejudiced by specu
lative presuppositions, but will continually vindicate a soUd
experience and conteraplation against the mere poetry of
nature. But in what relation does this philosophy stand to
religion and morality, to Christianity, to Protestantisra ? These
are questions which interest us much, but to answer them is
extremely difficult. It seems that a God dwelling in the
world, by whora we are not only created and preserved, but
in whom we Uve and raove, and have our being, is of more
advantage to religion than a God above and beyond the world.
There may be raoraents in which it is a great comfort to feel
ourselves so near the heart of God in this visible world, that our
o-wn life seems to be only the stroke of the pulse of the great
all-moving mundane soul, and that, like a drop in the ocean, we
lose ourselves in this One and All,wishingnothing raore ardently
than to be resolved into it. But these dispositions, when
more fully considered, are raore poetical than religious ; they
are not the dispositions which Christianity, which the Bible,
and especially the New Testaraent, would cherish in us ; for

284 FREDERIC WILLIAM JOSEPH SCHELLING.

although the Bible reveals to us a God vvho is near us all,
O '
still the difference between God and the world, between
Creator and creature, is kept very prorainent, and the very
feeling of the holiness of God, which is nourished by the feel
ing of the contrast between the Eternal One and the finite
creature, does not perrait that fainiliarity to raanifest itself, by
which we appear simply as the thoughts of God, as rays of
His glory, as the breath of His being. In a word, this view,
which certainly cannot long be united with a Christian mode of
thinking, is Pantheism. It has raade its appearance at various
periods, and also in the Christian world, but it was most dis
tinctly staraped by the " Naturphilosophie ;" it is the doctrine
ofthe All-One, sometiraes regarded as God, soraetimes as the
world, and for that reason never leads to a real adoration of
God, but loses itself in that poetical inspiration of nature,
which forras the basis of heathen worship.
Let us hear the testimony of a distinguished German
theologian, who was hiraself attached to Schelling's philosophy
for sorae tirae, but rejected it on perceiving whither it led.
Tschirner, in his letters in reference to Reinhard's " Con
fessions," writes the following concerning his acquaintance with
this philosophy : — " I raust acknowledge that the universal life
which this philosophy breathes into dead nature, and imparts
to the suns and planets, as well as to the worra and plants ; and
the union which it raediates between the Infinite and finite
attracted me wonderfully. Physics taught me to re
gard the heavenly bodies as raere raasses, which, being entirely
soulless, raove according to the law of gravity, and probably
serve, like our planet, raerely as the abodes of living beings of
various kinds. "Schilling's ' Naturphilosophie' animated the
masses, and I looked up raore cheerfully to the stars and felt
happy in the thought that in them, as well as in me, dwelt ful
ness of life, only raised to infinitely higher powers. Kant's
' Criticism' had made a boundary, which separated the sensible
distinctly from the supersensible ; it had robbed rae of perceiving
and knowing the supernatural, and had left me only a faith
in the Divine, which it had placed far beyond the sphere of
ray knowledge. The 'Naturphilosophie' broke down the waU
of partition between tbe sensible and supersensible, manied
heaven with earth, and taught rae how to view the Infinite in

FREDERIC WILLIAM JOSEPH SCHELLING. 285
the finite. The ' Criticism' had resolved me into a double
being, had placed reason and sense in opposition to each other,
and had declared the eternal, giievous contest of duty with
inclination the object of my existence here. The ' Natur-
phUosophie' proraised rae a union of the separated ; the
spiritual, it said, and the sensible are one, the body is the era
bodied spirit, and the soul the spiritualized body, reason and
sense are but different raanifestations of one and the sarae
power, and it is not the object of thy existence for thee to
diride thyself, but to live in peace and harraony with thyself
and nature. The philosophers of all ages had taught rae to
separate reason frora fancy, the realra of truth frora the realm
of poetry, and had warned me not to follow the guidance of
fancy if I wanted to discover the truth, and not to mingle the
plays of fancy with the ideas of reason. The ' Naturphilo
sophie' united reason and fancy in one faculty, the faculty for
perceiving the Infinite, and placed poetry and philosophy in
the most intiraate relation. . . . Soon, however, this
poetical disposition vanished ; calra tranquillity again pos
sessed my bosora, and I atterapted to coraprehend the raean
ing of this philosophy with definiteness and clearness.
Then it appeared, as if suddenly, a beautiful charra was broken.
I saw myself no longer surrounded with lovely poetry, but
only with indefinite and airy forms without solidity or foun
dation ; and where I had heretofore beheld happy life, there
an abyss now opened, which threatened to swallow all that is
great and sublime. By calra investigation I perceived in the
' Naturphilosophie' a want of clearness and definiteness, and a
firm foundation, and discovered that it led to the raost raoum
ful results. . . . No philosophy ever proraised rae more,
none ever gave rae less. It has a lovely and bright appear
ance ; if, however, we strip off the beautiful covering, a hol
low pale forra appears, whose aspect we cannot bear to behold.
The philosophy, which speaks so much about beholding the
Infinite, so rauch about the revelations of God, and of the
blessed life in the absolute, ends with the result that all
that exists and happens, consequently also raan with his
thoughts, resolutions, and actions, is but the necessary effect
of a necessary vital energy, which .... unceasingly
generates, produces, and transforras its productions, in order

286 FREDERIC WILLIAM JOSEPH SCHELLING.
to let nevy productions proceed frora its inexhaustible ful
ness. This is the result of the 'Naturphilosophie,' with
which it takes away all that gives life, dignity, object and
iraportance — the idea of Divinity, of imraortaUty, of free
dora, and morality. Let no one suffer himself to be led astray
by the language of devotion, .... the frequent men
tioning of God and his revelations. The God of this phUo
sophy is the universe, there lives in hira only life and con
sciousness and producing power, but no holy will, no bene
volence, and no righteousness. . . . The blessed life of
this system consists only in the exaltation of the raind, which,
forgetting itself, conteraplates the universal life. The idea of
a personal iramortality is entirely foreign to this philosophy.
It recognizes no free actions on the part of raan ; to
it all is appearance, the Absolute manifested in a thousand
different forms ; and what it calls freedom and raorality, is
only life in increased potency. ... Its Infinite is only
an increased finite, . . . and what we caU the super
sensible, because it never enters the sphere of experience.
God, freedom, immortality, is sought for in vain in this
systera." We wUl not atterapt to decide how far this criticism of
Tschirner is coraplete ; how far is rests on a thoroughly cor
rect coraprehension of the system ; how far here, too, infer
ences are drawn, which the author of the systera would himself
reject ; how far a certain awkwardness of passing from an old
and accustomed to a new way of thinking, may have had an
influence in forraing these judgments ; but this is certain, that
the impression this philosophy raade upon a thoughtful and
considerate theologian is the sarae it has raade on raany other
conscientious teachers and preachers of Christianity. The
Kantian philosophy and the Rationalisra proceeding from it had,
with all that is negative in them, still retained the ideas of
God, freedom, and iramortality (which Tschirner missed so
much in the "Naturphilosophie"), as the essential ideas of re
Ugion. With all the abstractness of their teachings, they had
placed themselves sincerely upon this foundation, of which
Schelling's philosophy deprived its followers. And what did
it give in return ? Much at first sight. The " Philosophy of
Nature" even appeared to be an attempt to restore the old

FREDERIC WILLIAM JOSEPH SCHELLING. 287
faith of the Church, which Rationalisra had forsaken ; and on
this account it was welcoraed by many as the restorer of posi
tive Christianity. Men were again heard to speak of the in
carnation of God, of a trinity, of a fall and rederaption. Even
the doctrine of Satan was again advocated by the theologians
who adhered to this philosophy. There was, in general, as
httle lack of superabundant expressions as of bitter attacks
against the shallow Rationalism. Thus the orthodox appeared
to receive a new ally in this new philosophy, and raysticism,
which had long been decried as nonsense, again appeared to
elevate its head more gloriously than ever before. But if we
examine more closely what this philosophy raeant by those
expressions, we shall soon be convinced that it was neither
the doctrine of the Reforraers and of the syrabols of the
church, nor that of the Church Fathers, nor, finally, that of
Scripture. The fixed, inflexible dograas of the church are now
moulded into moveable pictures, which may be turned at one's
pleasure, to which you raay at one tirae give one sense, and
at another a different one. There, again, an ingenious play is
granted to the fancy, without gaining a ffrra hold and lasting
satisfaction for the understanding and the heart, the proper
bearers of the religious life.
As in the first centuries of Christianity, the Gnostics ex
hausted theraselves in the production ofthe raost extravagant
theories in reference to the origin of the world and the incar
nation of God, so here we finid a not less fantastical, though
more intellectual, philosophical rayth of the developraent of
the world, which too frequently brings to raind Jacob Boehra,
from whom Schelling has adopted many ideas.
In history Schelling distinguishes five periods or ages of the
world. " The first is the golden period, the time of blessed
indecision, when there was neither good nor bad, when man
as a creature of nature spent his tirae in unconscious inno
cence. Then foUows the period of ruling gods and heroes, the
omnipotence of nature, which, however, in the third place,
changes to a period of ruling destiny, to a period of decline
and division, tUl God reveals Himself according to His love
and mercy. God had to becorae raan in order that raan raight
come to God again. Thus, in the fourth place, a new king
dom is established by the incarnation of God in Christ, in

288 FREDERIC WILLIAM JOSEPH SCHELLING.
which the Divine Spirit is continuaUy realizing itself more
and raore fully, till, fifthly, at the end of this period, destiny
transforras itself to providence, all evil is overcome, God is
realized, is all in all." In this we indeed hear a language,
which, with Scriptural and ecclesiastical sounds, actually re
minds us of Christian truths, which were lost at that time,
especially the fundaraental truth, that, as Schelling himseff
expresses it, God becarae raan, that raan might becorae divine.
But if we examine the matter more carefully, we find that by
the incarnation of God, Schelling raeans nothing else than God
first coming to a consciousness of Himself in raan. To him
God the Father is not that Father to whom Christ bids us
pray in the Lord's prayer, and whom Paul calls the Father of all
in heaven and on earth ; not that Father who, before the foun
dation of the world was laid, out of pure mercy chose humanity
as His inheritance in Christ ; no, what Schelling calls Father
is only that raysterious, unconscious priraeval cause, or rather
non-causer, of all things, who first knows hiraself in the Son,
and through hira first coraes to consciousness, a disraal paternal
countenance, indeed, a Saturn, who devours his children, not
God the Father, who clasps thera to His bosora even before
they exist. God the Son is the self-revelation and self-unfold
ing of the Father ; He is the divine understanding, in which
God first recognizes His own essence ; and since this unfold
ing of God again retums into itself, therefore God is God, that
is. Spirit. It is true (according to SchelUng) that God is the
Alpha and Oraega, the first and the last ; but first, as Omega,
He is the proper God, or, as it were, the God having become
God. Schelling thus lets his God work hiraself through the
entire alphabet of the development of the world before he
coraes to full existence. This is the secret of the trinity in
the sense of the " Philosophy of Nature." But how is it with
the person of Christ ? As with Fichte, so with ScheUing, the
historical Christ, the Jesus of Nazareth, as He lived and taught
as man, is not the essence of Christianity, for God comes to
consciousness in raan in general. The incarnation of God is,
according to Schelling's own words, not an incarnation happen
ing once, but an ideal incarnation frora eternity, and is pro
perly the same as the mystery of nature.
That in the historical Christ, God becarae raost fully con-

FREDERIC WILLIAM JOSEPH SCHELLING. 289
scious of himself, is acknowledged by Schelling, since no one
before him had revealed the Infinite in such a manner ; but
he is by no means willing to raake the idea of Christianity
dependent on this peculiarity ; for, even without this histori
cal basis, this idea retains for hira, as for Fichte, the sarae
significance as raetaphysical truth. When, however, SchelUng
speaks of a suffering God, it raay easUy be perceived that
he does not mean what Zinzendorf does when he speaks of
a crucified God, and of the Creator's wounds. Schelling's
suffering God is nothing else than the progressive self-develop
ment of God araid struggles. Thus, (although more sen
sually and fantastically) the ancient Manichaeans had already
called the suffering of nature, the perishing of the vegetable
kingdom, and sirailar raetaraorphoses, the suffering Jesus.
If this is true, it may be asked, whether the church is not
better off with a rationalist of the Kantian school, who dryly
and honestly says : " I cannot agree with your dogma of
the incarnation of God, of Redemption, etc., I will rather cling
to the siraple doctrine of God, vdrtue, iraraortality, and to the
great and sublirae teachings of Jesus on these subjects," than
with a Pantheist who, under the appearance of almost ex
treme orthodoxy, removes that which rationalism retains.
Independent of all the unworthiness of such a deception, such
a doctrine is void of aU raoral fruits, since it only takes the
speculative head into the account, but not the heart and v\ ill
of man. This philosophy differs frora the earUer raysticism,
with which in other respects it has some similarity in its
moral results. Where the mystics transplanted history to the
inner man, they had the practical sanctification chiefly in
riew, and in this sense spoke of Christ being born in us, of
dying with hira, of being raised with him, while this philoso
phy thinks of natural events, which depend on the law of
necessity, and even if it will not admit that it destroys
moral freedora, but rather asserts that it puts real in place of
apparent freedora, still it cannot be denied that the inclina
tion to know, to explain the mysteries of aU life and develop
ment is far more prorainent in it than the tendency to become
better and to produce a raore worthy state of being.^ In
' Of course philosophy, as such, deals with knowledge ; for this it shall not be
reproached. But when Christian theology, which deals with the practical
T

290 FREDERIC WILLIAM JOSEPH SCHELLING.
this the philosophy of SchelUng differs from both its prede
cessors, the Kantian, and the Fichtean systeras. He also
sustains a different relation to Protestantism. A separation
in the church between persons of knowledge, and those simply
believing, (the esoterics and exoterics) is foreign to Christianity
in general, and especially to Protestant Christianity. A
language which only the initiated understand, and which
does not at aU accommodate itself to the comprehension of
the weak and uncultivated, is any thing but the language of
the Reforraers, the language of a Luther and Zwingli. But
even if only compared with Kant and Fichte, Schelling's
philosophy shows much less of a Protestant character than
theirs. Kant and Fichte, with all their deviations frora the
orthodox doctrines of the Protestant Church, stand altogether
on a Protestant foundation, they even have a certain Protes
tant prudery, carry with thera a moral exactness, a corrosive
critical salt, while the " Philosophy of Nature," with the
poetical twilight in which it moves, may very easily be used
by Catholics for the support of the Catholic doctrines, which
has actuaUy been done. The Catholic tendency in art found
its support principally in the Pantheistic-poetic view of the
world. But still we vrill not deny the significance of this phUoso
phy ; that the living coraprehension and treatment gf all tbat
Uves, for which raodern science is distinguished, received its
' O '
irapulse frora the " Philosophy of Nature," even if much still
needed sifting. Through this phUosophy spirit and life were
brought into the study of nature, of art, of history, and also
of theology ; for that through it attention was again caUed to
the deeper significance of the cburch, its doctrines, and divine
worship, is a great raerit of which it cannot be deprived. It
was not now considered bigotry and want of acquaintance
with philosophy, if one spoke of the raysteries of faith
vrith fervour, with reverence, and vrith animation. The
poverty and narnowness of the so-called philosophy of
" coraraon sense," becarae raore and more evident. Men again
religion of the gospel, is entirely consumed by this philosophy, it is a different
thine ; therefore, just at the right rime Schleiermaeher was desirous of separat
ing the two.

FREDERIC HENRY JACOBI. 291
searched deep, and did not even avoid the rairacle, where it
pressed itself on the raind. How much Schleiermaeher was
indebted to this philosophy we shall see in another place.
We now turn to a raan -who had at least as great a share in the
education of Schleierraacher, as Schelling, although he took a
position entirely opposite to the latter and his philosophy.
We speak of F. H. Jacobi.

XIX.
FREDERIC HENRY JACOBI.
JACOBI AND THE RELIGION OF THE HEART IN OPPOSITION TO
ORTHODOXY AND SPECULATION.
I HAVE intentionaUy refrained frora speaking of this pious,
deep thinker, this man of childlike purity, this noble philoso
pher, tiU the phases of modern philosophy, as they appeared
in Kant, Fichte, and Schelling, bad passed before us, so as to
permit us now to follow his life without interruption. He
came in contact with all the above-named phUosopbers, and
externaUy, to some extent, formed a centre, around which
gathered the inteUectually great of that age.
Fr. H. Jacobi, second son of a wealthy raerchant of Dussel
dorf, brother of the well-known genial poet, Joh. George, was
born the 25th of January, 1743 (a conteraporary, therefore,
of Lavater and Herder). He was intended for raercantile
business by his father, and in order to prepare hiraself for this,
went to Frankfort-on-the-Maine in his sixteenth year. In
the meantirae, however, be showed raore love for the sciences
than for trade. He went to Geneva, where he forraed the
acquaintance of educated raen, especiaUy of the raatheraati
clan, Le Sage, and he also became famiUar with the best
works of French literature, and returned home in a few years.
In his twenty-second year he raarried Betty Von Clermont of
Naels, near Aix-la-ChapeUe, " an exceUent Belgian lady," as
Goethe caUs her, " who, without the least sentiraentality or

•2'.) -2 FREDERIC HENRY JACOBL
expression of sensuality, brings to raind the women of Rubens."
Jacobi soon abandoned his business, in order to devote him
seff to tbe service of the state as raember of the exchequer,
and afterwards with the title of privy counseUor. His exter
nal relations were very favourable. His well-arranged house
in Dusseldorf, and especially his country-seat in the neigh-
liouring Perapelfort,^ afforded the thinker and author a fine
asylura, and the hospitable man a desired opportunity, for the
reception of distinguished guests frora all parts of the learned
world. His social talent and the affection which accorapanied
nearly all that he said, did very rauch to animate the intel
lectual society in which he moved, and this tone of affection,
which was softened by his fine raanners, also characterizes his
writings. Sorae have denied his fitness for authorship, be
cause he lacked a profound, learned education ; he was, tbey
say, rather a scientific araateur. But this very thing seems
to me of the greatest significance, that a man, who kept free
from all Gerraan pedantry, wbo had been raore incited by
French culture, who had no need of disputing for a philoso
phical chair in a university because he had raore raeans than
he needed, that such a raan ventured to enter the depths of
jihilosophy, led only by the inner irapulse of his spirit, not
for the sake of becoraing renowned, or of establishing a school,
but purely to attain a knowledge of the highest interests of
humanity. This impulse had already raanifested itself in
•Tacobi in his early childhood. " I still wore ray polish coat,"
he says, " when I began to be anxious about the affairs of
another world, and ray childish thoughtfulness brought me in
ray eighth or ninth year to certain views, which cling to me
to this hour. The longing to bring to certainty the better
expectation of raan, grew with ray years, and it became the
principal thread to which aU my other fortunes were attached."
Nor did this impulse leave hira in later life. '' I have now (so
he says in his ' Conversation on Idealisra and Realism ') forty-
three years on ray head, and have been cast about by fate vrith
' An effort is now being made by the friends of learning to purchase this
country-seat, so that the premises may be preserved in honour of its former
distinguished owner and of the eminent ftieu who there shared his hospi
tality.— Tb.

FREDERIC HENRY JACOBL 293
a pretty rude hand. Thousands of persons may excel me in in
tellectual powers, but certainly few in perseverance and zeal in
struggling for knowledge and truth. I have traced the most
distinguished and obscure sources of huraan knowledge with
untiring energy till raany of thera lost theraselves in invisible
veins. I have seen other inquirers, and not a few of them
were among the greatest minds of my contemporaries. I
have had an opportunity, and have been obliged to try ray
powers in raany different ways."
Jacobi has in a special raanner becorae the philosopher of
life and of the educated world, but in a higher and nobler
sense than those popular philosophers, who atterapted to raake
the thoughts, snatched up bere and there and rhetorically
poUshed, popular by rendering them shallow, and who, for the
most part, only took thera frora higher sources. That sincere
struggle for depth as well as clearness, that continual self-
penetration, that deraanding an account of the inraost part of
our nature, that exaraination of the original sources in raan,
that huraanity with which he welcomes every appearance in
the department of the intellect which he discovers, and also
that noble wrath with which he rejects whatever denies a
personal God and dishonours virtue, — it is these that place
him in the sarae line with Herder, and which raust raake him
dear to all who have determined to follow the course of their
own inner experience, however great the claraour of those
following the beaten track may be against thera.
Jacobi stood in a very peculiar relation to the phUosophy
of his time, as it worked its way from Kant to Schelling.^
He was urged on by each of these systeras, learned something
from each, exercised his powers on each, but he was satisfied
by neither, and was raost repelled by Pantheism. Jacobi,
with aU his profound knowledge, was, according to the usual
idea of philosophy, either an opponent of all philosophy, or a
philosopher in that sense of the word in which Socrates was
one through the knowledge of his ignorance. He was, how
ever, a decided opponent of that phUosophy, to which the
'This relation cannot be described easily. "Do take the trouble," says
Goethe in a letter to Jacobi, " to shew me plainly in what respect you differ
from our modern philosophers, and at which point you separate from them, and
make me able to dispute with them in your name."

294 FREDERIC HENRY JACOBI.
mere forraal knowledge of things is the final object. He had
no taste for that raere " logical enthusiasra," to which think
ing itself is the highest end. The explanation of things was
not his final object, but that which cannot be explained, can
not be coraprehended by our conceptions, cannot be analyzed
in words, the siraple, the indissoluble. " The basis of aU
speculative philosophy," he says, " is only a great hole, in
which we look in vain as in a very dark abyss." This aver
sion to speculative philosophy did not, however, prevent him
frora searching continually for the best foundation, only he
dug within, while others only laboured on the hole from
without. " No one," says Jacobi, " can despise the close and
subtle investigation of trifles raore than I do ; but frora this
I distinguish the free exertion of the inraost original sense."
And on this inraost original sense Jacobi based everything.
" There is, indeed," be says, " a knowledge of the supernatural,
of God and divine things, and this knowledge is the raost cer
tain in the huraan mind — a knowledge absolute and proceed
ing directly frora human reason ; but it can never take the
forra of science." Jacobi was no despiser of reason, but rather
defended it. He did not, however, regard it a power whicii
can create truths of itself, can discover, can produce them ;
but by reason he understood, according to the etymology of
the word, that which perceives, that inraost original sense
mentioned above. He did not think that reason and faith
are opposed to each other, but that they are one and the
sarae. Faith supplies what knowledge cannot reach. Jacobi
followed Kant in this respect, that he acknowledged , that our
perceptions are inadequate to say anything purely demonstra
ble in reference to God and divine things. As on this account
Kant had left a vacant place in his systera for God and
divine things, which was but iraperfectly and unsatisfactorily
filled by what he thought belonged to- practical reason, Jacobi
suppUed the deficiency by his doctrine of faith. Man, of
course, cannot reach God in thought, but he can feel and ex
perience Hira. We raust love God, he says with Pascal, in
order to know Hira. This love, as we experience it in our
selves is the original, is that which proves itself in our minds
superior to all thinking. We have a knowledge of God and
His will, because we are born of God, are created after His

FREDERIC HENRY JACOBL 295
image, are like Hira. God lives in us, and our life is hid in
God. If He were not thus iraraediately present by raeans
of His image in us, what outside of Hira should make Hira
known to us ?
Consequently Jacobi believed in a revelation of God to raan,
but in a revelation which is continually being made to the
inner man, a revelation which he perceives with reason, but
cannot coraprehend with his understanding.^ However rauch
he opposed the cold, calculating understanding, with this faith
Ul revelation, still he did not place hiraself on the side of the
believers in revelation, in the sense in which the word is- held
by the Church ; and this is the point in which he differed
from his friends Claudius, Haraann, Lavater, and frora the
fiiends and professors of positive Christianity. On this
account it is irapossible to class hira with the Christian philo
sophers in the raore liraited sense of the word, however
thoroughly Christian his disposition, the thoughts and raedita-
tions of his heart, and the tendency of his entire phUosophy. '
For the very reason that Jacobi made all depend on the inner
experience of the heart, because that was the divine to him,
which each one has to perceive hiraself, therefore an extemal
revelation, even if provided witb all rairacles, could as little
satisfy hira, as a philosophical systera construed externally,
and then raade ours by learning it. In both he beheld the
kilhng of the letter. As the speculative philosophy was too
idealistic for hira, so the orthodox faith was too realistic, too
material, too positive. He indeed valued the strict faith in
revelation highly, and felt hiraself most intiraately connected
with it by his living faith in God and the piety of his heart.
How intiraate his relation to Claudius, is evident from his
book on "Divine Things and their Revelation." But it
appeared to hira, that tbe pious people deceived themselves,
because they ascribed that to an external revelation, which
lay in theraselves and which was only awakened by the read
ing of the Bible, not originaUy produced by it. They are, he
thinks, Uke children who, when they ride tbeir hobby-horse,
think the horse bears thera along, while it is owing to their
' Jacobi deserves credit for having so strictly carried out the difference be
tween reason and understanding, especiaUy in his later writings, which difference
Kant had only half conceived.

296 FREDERIC HENRY JACOBL
own exertions that they raove at aU. " It depends on your
own raotion and continual adherence to wisdom, bravery, and
good pleasure ; . . . the horse no raore raakes the raan
than tbe coat." Claudius, on the other hand, corapared an
ideal religion, without historical basis, to a painted horse which
you can adraire, but not ride. Jacobi raade another and more
ingenious coraparison when he corapared revelation to the
consonants and the religious sense in us to the vowels, through
which the raute consonants are quickened. He, however,
acknowledges that both belong together, and in this Claudius
had to agree with hira. Jacobi bowed humbly before the
warra enthusiastic representation which Claudius in his high
sirapUcity raade of Christ. "What a picture !" he exclaimed,
" what sublirae and touching contrasts ! What a power of
beauty, of grace and raajesty in the united traces of this per
fect ideal of united divinity and humanity." Jacobi, too, as
Claudius, found all that he required of a religious and moral
man united in Christ and that in the real, the historical Christ,
who was more to him than a raere idea, and by no raeans a
mere fiction, a myth. When, however, Claudius insisted, that
it is only through Christ that we corae to God, that we can
only elevate ourselves to him by clinging to Christ, Jacobi
thought on the other hand that we soar to God with Christ.
The principal thing for him was, that that which lived in
Christ, also becorae alive in us. Trusting on historical events
he considered superstition, and therefore he always had his
suspicions in reference to the positive Christianity in general,
because he feared, and not without reason, that the extemal
to which he was so rauch opposed was concealed behind it,
and because he regarded every corapleted systera as something
dangerous, that is, as an idol which is worshipped instead of
the living God. In this respect he had rauch similarity to
Fichte, however rauch he differed from him in his phUosophi
cal principles. Jacobi, as well as Fichte, in his more advanced
age, felt hiraself drawn towards the inner, deeper life-giving
fountain of Christianity with his whole heart ; therefore, com
pared with the cold "illuminati" of the day, he was decried
as a hypocrite, and as one opposing the march of inteUect ; but
as soon as he attempted to arrange the contents of the Chris
tian doctrines with his understanding, to embrace wdiat is

FREDERIC HENRY JACOBL 297
beheved in a confession, a forraula, his inner sense strove
against it. Frora this syrapathy with religion and antipathy
to aU dograatics and speculation, his own reraarkable declara
tion may be explained, that with his heart he was a Christian,
-with his understanding a heathen, that he swara between two
waters whicii would not unite in hira.
However, this heathenism of Jacobi was not intended to
be taken very seriously. We would rather say that with the
heart he was a Supematuralist, perhaps even a Pietist in the
noble sense of the word, and with the understanding a
Rationalist ; for, however little Jacobi could agree with the
doctrines raore distinctly Chiistian, his philosophy still showed
itself essentially Christian, in that it raaintained against the
Pantheistic fanaticism of the age the faith in a personal God,
which forras the foundation of all revelation, and without
which all talk about revelation is mere deception and a
quibble. We cannot follow the diffuse philosophical dispute
itseff, which was, first occasioned by the study of Spinoza,
which Lessing had incited, and whicii received special irapor
tance through Schelling. Soraething, however, raust be said
of the disputed question in general, as it becarae more and
more the living question of the whole period, and for its
solution our own age is very anxious. If I advance it
as one of the chief merits of Jacobi's philosophy, and as a
characteristic token of its Christianity, that it raaintained the
faith in a personal God in opposition to the pantheistic
tendencies, I do not insist on the word and conception of
" personality," and I will gladly consent to another word, if
one can be found which denotes with sufficient distinctness a
God, conscious of Hiraself, different frora the world, and not
coinciding with it. I admit that the expression "personality"
is apt to carry with it the accessory notion of liraitation,
which of course raust be removed from the idea of God. In
this sense Herder, who, in opposition to Jacobi, agreed with
the philosopher Spinoza, objected to the expression " person
ahty,'' and even Lavater acknowledged that the conception of
a personality of God belongs to the childhood of huraanity.
But the sarae Lavater in this very matter stood on the
side of Jacobi ; when he writes : " that which is most
vigorous in rae, above rae and around me, is God, and per-

298 FREDERIC HENRY JACOBL
sonal raan raust personify." Jacobi wanted to know nothing
of a God who is no Helper, of a God who raakes the eye and
does not see, the ear and does not hear, the understanding
and does not perceive, does not know, does not wiU, and
therefore is not. Pantheisra and Atheism were not the same to
Jacobi ; for a God who first receives his existence through
the world, and coraes to consciousness first in raan, is no God,
but an idol, just as little did Jacobi want a God raerely above
and outside of the world (as the Deists), who is sundered from
the world and huraanity, and who does not appear to be
concerned about thera ; he wanted a God who coramuni
cates Hiraself to the inner raan and gives us the assurance
that we are of divine origin ; but he did not want this God
to be confined to the world, he wanted a God whom we have
not only in our eyes, but before our eyes ; a God whom we
have not only as I — Ego — but as Thou ; a God to whom we
can praj', and who says to hiraself, / am that I am. Thus
raan, according to Jacobi, ought to recognise God as well
above hira as in hira, and only in holding to one as well as the
the other, did he regard raan as having the living faith in
God, as the Bible and Christianity teach, and as all that is
called religion in heaven or on earth, requires and presupposes
with eternal necessity. So much of Jacobi as a Christian
thinker. We will not speak of the personal contest between him
and ScheUing, which was carried on by the latter with much
bitterness ; but wUl only call to mind that the subject
of controversy between these two men, continues to
be discussed in the schools, for Hegel built on ScheUing,^ and
Fries and many other independent thinkers, continued to build
partly on Kant, partly on Jacobi ; each one cf course in his
own way, and partially opposing his predecessors.
' It has already been mentioned that we only speak of the earlier Schelling.
That the later Schelling forms the opposition to Hegel, cannot appear strange
to him who observes the rotating motion of philosophy, with an unprejudiced
eye. It appears to us that the return of the great philosopher to the religious
standpoint, can, perhaps, not be accomplished otherwise than by an atonement,
which he owes to the manes of Jacobi.

JOHN GOTTLIEB FICHTE. 299
XX.
JOHN GOTTLIEB FICHTE.
FICHTE TILL HIS APPOINTMENT AS PROFESSOR IN JENA.  TUE
FICHTEAN IDEALISM.  CHARGE OF ATHEISM.  FICHTE IN
BERLIN.  RETURN TO THE RELIGIOUS STAND-POINT. 
" DIRECTIONS FOR A BLESSED LIFE."  FICHTE's LAST DAYS
AND DEATH.
In the village of Ramraenau in Upper Lusatia, John Gott
lieb Fichte was born. May 19th 1762. His father was a
linen weaver, and hiraself gave the child his first instruction,
when the loora was standing still and the garden work was
accomplished, exercising hira in reading, teaching hira religious
passages and hyrans ; very likely relating to hira raany things
of his travels through Saxony and Franconia, and thus
awaking aspirations for great things in the infant raind. As
the boy becarae older it becarae his duty to read the daily
morning and evening prayers in tbe faraily circle, and then
already the father perhaps cherished the silent hope of one
day hearing his son preach in the village pulpit. In the
mean while the pastor of the place interested hiraself in the
aspiring boy, being particularly pleased with the evidence of
a good meraor}^, given by the unhesitating repetition of a
sermon which the chUd had heard. This talent brought hira
into favour with a noble lord also, in whose presence he was
at one tirae caUed on to repeat a serraon, and who was so
pleased with the perforraance that he proraised to attend to
his education frora that period, and committed the boy to the
charge of a country clergyman near Meissen. Here Fichte
laid the foundation for the ancient languages. In his twelfth
year he entered the city school of Meissen, and a little later
the school Pforta by Naumburg, in which Klopstock was
educated and which has sent forth so raany great Gerraans.
The monastic seclusion, which had already roused many a
young heart in that school to resistance, becarae to hira ex
ceedingly oppressive and at last awakened in him the thought
of secret fiight. He actuaUy fled vrith the intention of be
coming a second Robinson Crusoe, but on an open hill, not far
from the school, in the midst of a prayer which he offered to

300 JOHN GOTTLIEB FICHTE.
God for his deliverance, he was struck with sorrow for his
undertaking ; an inner voice bade hira retrace his step and
he voluntarily returned. His sincere repentance not only
procured hira pardon but also railder treatraent.
From the youth of Haraann and others we learn that the
one-sided instruction, which at that tirae prevaUed in raost of
the Gerraan schools, confining education almost entirely to
the study of the ancient languages, was especially the sys
tem of the celebrated school Pforta. The so-called real
sciences were not studied, nor polite literature ; the German
poets were read only by stealth, the solid Haller alone was
used. In this clandestine manner Fichte, among other works,
becarae acquainted with Lessing's polemic treatise against
Goetze ; and now perhaps that polemic dart was sharpened
which he afterwards, in the spirit of Lessing, hurled against
his enemies. About Michaelmas 1780, Fichte entered the
university of Jena, for the purpose of studying theology, but,
although he preached at various places Vfith success, eloquence
was not natural to hira ; he was therefore soon absorbed in
philosophical studies.
Being deprived of all help from others, he was obliged to
provide for his future course hiraself, and then his good star
led hira to us in Switzerland by means of a tutor's situation
which was offered him by the landlord of the "Sword" in
Zurich, who desired to give his chUdren more than a common
education. Here Fichte sometiraes preached in the city, as
¦well as in the neighbouring country; here he made the
acquaintance of Lavater ; here, too, originated a love affair
with the lady whora he afterwards raarried. She was the
daughter of Rahn, the Keeper of the PubUc Scales, and the
niece of Klopstock. In the raeanwhile, however, Fichte felt
hiraself obliged to seek his support in sorae other place, and
being supplied with letters from Lavater and others, he
returned to Gerraanv^ In this unsettled pecuniary condition,
which drove hira as far as Poland, he was continually study
ing raore and raore thoroughly the Kantian phUosophy, whose
devoted follower he had becorae. He did not rest till he
becarae personally acquainted with Kant. He went to
Kdnisberg, visited the Philosopher at his house and attended
his lectures as a transient auditor. But he found himself
satisfied neither at the one place nor the other. The recep-

JOHN GOTTLIEB FICHTE. 801
tion at the house was cold, the discourse in the lecture room
was drowsy. Still Fichte remained an enthusiastic disciple of
the critical philosopher, and soon, as an author, became the
representative of the Kantian system. "The attempt at a
critique of all Revelation," (" Versuch einer Kritik aller
Offenbarung,") appeared, a work in which the Kantian prin
ciples, in reference to the possibility of an extraordinary
Revelation, are applied with raasterly skill. It excited great
attention. In public criticisms Kant himself was mentioned
and praised as the author. Even to the rainute parts of the
work, it was thought that traces of Kant's style were dis
cernible, until finally Kant declared that he was not tbe
author, but a certain candidate of theology, Fichte, who was at
that time tutor in the family of the Count of Krakow in W est
Prussia. This was the ffrst thing that made Fichte's name
renowned in Germanv, but with the renown rose also a number
of opponents and eneraies, and the aspiring inteUect was
drawn into those confused literary contests, out of which even
the matured raind never coraes fully. In the raidst of these
contests Fichte traveUed back to Zurich and consuraraated his
marriage there in the fall of 1793.
" Half of tay soul," so he writes to the lady while yet on
the journey, "we will raake tlie indissoluble covenant of virtue
as soon as we shaU see each other again ; we will he to each
other the staff and support in the path of virtue ; we will
remind and adraonish each other when either becomes for
getful ; for  I have resolutely determined to
be an upright man in the full sense of the term, and for
this I shall often have need of your assistance." The mar
riage took place in Baden, Argovie ; and Lavater who was
at first expected to perforra the cereraony, but who resigned it
to J. G. Schulthess, made the bridal couple rejoice with con
gratulatory verses.
About this tirae Fichte raade the acquaintance of the
author of " Lienhard and Gertrude," who, still Uving in re
tfrement at Richterswyl was reflecting on his first essays on
popular education. Pestalozzi and Fichte were pleased with
each other and continued during life to be friends. In later
years, Fichte said with enthusiasra that in Pestalozzi's sys
tem of education was to be found the trae remedy for sick

302 JOHN GOTTLIEB FICHTE.
humanity.^ Fichte, at first lived in Zurich in the house of
his father-in-law, in the happiest relations. Here he was
occupied from without with the great commotions, produced
by the revolutiou, and frora within with the further develop
raent and corapletion of his system. At the solicitation of
Lavater he delivered philosophical lectures before the public
of Zurich, and Lavater hiraseff, however little he raight be
able to reconcile his own mind to the phUosophical train of
Fichte's thoughts, was one of his first and raost enthusiastic audi
tors. A proof this is of the freshness of Lavater's mind, and
of that high true liberality which at that tirae brought into
close relation raen of the raost different raodes of thinking,
because the presentiraent of soraething better, which was
airaed at by all parties, and the pleasure in seeking was
greater than the dissatisfactioh experienced frora tran
sient contradictions. Later than thi.s, when Fichte was
already persecuted on account of atheisra, Lavater wrote to
him out of the spirit of Fichte's Philosophy the following
lines : " Unerreichbarer Denker ! Dein Dasein beweist mir das Dasein
Eines ewigen Geistes, dem hohe Geister entstrahlen !
Konntest je du zweifeln, ich stellte dich selbst vor dich selbst nur,
Zeigte dir in dir selbst den Strahl des ewigen Geistes." ^
Fichte was taken frora the friendly relations of Zurich so
ciety by a caU to a philosophical Professorship at Jena. His
wife reraained at Zurich for sorae tirae. With his appearance
at Jena coraraences Fichte's pubUc activity as teacher in the
higher sense. Jena was at that tirae the centre of raodern erudi
tion. Here lived and taught SchiUer, whose acquaintance Fichte
had raade previously, and who shared with him the admira
tion for the celebrated Kant, and from this place he entered
into a relation with the Weimarians, Wieland, Goethe, Herder ;
and raade acquaintance also with Jacobi, Huraboldt,the brothers
Schlegel, and others. Youth flocked to Jena frora aU regions.
! In his " Reden an die deutsche Nation."
2 Unattainable Thinker ! Thy existence proves to me the existence of an
Eternal Spirit from whom radiate noble spirits! Couldst thou ever doubt, I
would only place thee before thyself, show thee in thyself the ray of the Eternal
Spirit.

JOHN GOTTLIEB FICHTE. 303
Swiss, Danes, Courlanders, Livonians, Poles, Hungarians,
and Transylvanians, also several Frenchraen sat at the feet of
the Gerraan teacher, to receive as it were the inraost spirit and
kernel of science, with the Wissenschaftslehre, as Fichte called
his Philosophy. Fichte fully felt the greatness and import
ance of his position as Acaderaical teacher. He is perhaps
the first since the days of the Reforraation who has properly
comprehended the duties of such a teacher. His infiuence
upon the students was not intended to be raerely scientific, in
the common-sense of the word, not merely learned, not raerely
hteral performance, which in case of necessity raight be ac
comphshed by letter. He was no dictating raachine, he knew
the power of the living word, and of personal intercourse.
He desired to influence the Acaderaical youth in a manner
morally ennobling and intellectually inciting ; to teach thera
to comprehend the caUing and end of the learned frora the
highest and noblest point of view ; to elevate thera above
common and every-day affairs and lead thera to the ideal.
He desfred less to lead back into the antiquity of the past
than to prepare, with poetical inspiration, a more beautiful,
more powerful future. In this striving Fichte had much in
common with SchiUer. In Fichte's Lectures on the " Bestim-
mung des Gelehrten" and sirailar writings, as well as in his
letters, we flnd the sarae morally irapelling and purifying
power, which we have recognized in Schiller's poeras. But
vnth this moral ideality was connected a bold transcending of
what had been handed down frora other ages and of the posi
tive, a certain deflance which the youth were apt to regard
as an expression of the feeling of raoral strength, which was,
however, viewed with suspicion by reflecting raen and by those
in authority. A coteraporary and admirer of Fichte (Forberg)
says : — " The spirit of the Fichtean philosophy is a proiud and
daring spirit, for which the sphere of human knowledge is too
smaU ; it strikes out a new course every step it takes, struggles
with language in order to wrestle frora it words to express
the fulness of its thoughts ; it does not lead, but seizes and
forces us along, and touches no object vrithout crushing it.
• . . The distinguishing raark of Fichte's character is the
highest integrity. Such a character generaUy knows least
about delicacy and gentility. . . . His discourse there-

304 JOHN GOTTLIEB FICHTE.
fore roars like a thunderstorra, which discharges its fire in
separate strokes. His imagination is not vivid, but energetic
and powerful. He penetrates the lowest depths of his subject,
and moves about in the realra of ideas with a freedora which
shows that he not only lives, but actually reigns in this in
visible realm."
In reference to the effect which Fichte's Lectures produced
upon the students, the same observer remarks : — " Fichte is
believed in, as his predecessor Reinhold'' had never been. He
is, of course, understood much less, but on this very account
is believed raore obstinately. I and not=I, Ich und Nicht
=Ich (the characteristic words of the Fichtean philosophy)
are now the symbol of the philosophers of yesterday, as in the
time of Kant and Reinhold, matter and forra were.
Fichte intends to affect the world by raeans of his phUosophy.
The inclination, to restless activity, which dwells in the bosom
of every noble youth, is carefully cherished and nourished by
him, that it raay produce fruit at the proper tirae. He is
continually inculcating that action! action!^ is the object of
raan, frora which it is to be feared, that the raajority of the
youth, who take this to heart, vrill regard the suramons to
action as nothing else than a suramons to destroy. Besides
this the sentence is false. Man is not created to act ; if he
cannot act without doing wrong, he ought to reraain inactive.
Thus far this observer. Let us add to this what Fichte says
of hiraself : — " The principal object of my life," he writes to
Miss Rahn, " is to avail mj^self of every kind of improvement
(not scientific, for I find much vanity in that), of character
which my condition will possibly permit, I study the course
of Providence in ray life, and find that this may also perhaps
be the plan of Providence in reference to rayself, and I have,
•Reinhold forms the transition from Kant to Fichte in the History of Modern
Philosophy. It is a remarkable fact for an historical purpose, that Reinhold
proceeded from the Catholic Church, but by means of philosophy found his way
into the Protestant Church ; and indeed, the development of modern philosophy
generally, till Schelling, belongs to Protestantism, and first since then a Catholic
speculation has planted itself beside the Protestant.
' ScheUing in one of his lectures says : — " Action ! action ! is the cry which
resounds from all sides ; it is mostly, however, raised by those who cannot get
along with knowledge." — Tk.

JOHN GOTTLIEB FICHTE. 305
in general, found that all the occurrences of ray life have
made ray character raore decided .... I have too
little talent to insinuate rayself into any one's favour, and to
deal with pei-sons whora I do not like ; I can only get along
with good, honest people, ara too frank and unfit for court.
. . I am as little fit to be a leamed raan by profession, as
it is possible to be. I want not only to think, I want to a/it ;
1 like least of aU to think about trifles  I do not
seek happiness ; I know that I shaU never flnd it. I have
only one passion, only one want, only one full feeUng of self
to effect that which hes without me. The more I act the
happier I feel."
We thus flnd, from the testimony of others, and of Fichte
himseff, that he was not so rauch in pursuit of thought as of
action, and we raight therefore expect a phUosophy, which
impels directly to action. But we would deceive ourselves
greatly, if we expected a practical philosophy, i. e., a philo
sophy of life intelligible to all. There was no lack, at that
time, of such practical phUosophies ; but that of Fichte was
the farthest reraoved frora these. What Fichte terras " ac
tion," is not action after the raanner of a carap, an industrious
actirity ; nor the quiet action of philanthropy for the public
good ; it is action which is intended to affect others definitely,
to give the world anew tendency, a new irapulse ; transform
ing, reformatory, perhaps even revolutionary action ; not,
however, in a blind, hap-hazard manner : it is not to be mere
agitation, but rather action, resulting from our deepest con
victions and from the consciousness of the highest personal
freedom. And this consciousness again was connected in the
most intimate manner vrith Fichte's philosophy. This phUo
sophy was not tbe fruit of merely thinking ; it forced itself
on him as he struggled for the truth. However abstract and
unpopular, therefore, it may appear to those who are not accus
tomed to the technical language of speculation, with Fichte it
was the fruit of the noblest and greatest moral struggle ; it
was deeply rooted in his heroic, I might say Titanic, character.
This was the very thing which raade it so accessible to the
young men, even where they understood but haff, had but a
faint presentiraent of the trath and were araazed. This was
also felt by the opponents. They knew very weU how to dis-
u

306 JOHN GOTTLIEB FICHTE.
cover the revolutionary, which was contained in Fichte's mode
of thinking, and was thrown like an electric spark in the
rainds of tbe youth ; and it was probably quite a right con
jecture of Fichte, when he supposed, that it was not so rauch
his atheisra which frightened the people, as his deraocracy,
which, at this time of political excitement in the neighbouring
country, appeared doubly dangerous. Since, however, the
theoretical and practical were most intiraately connected in
him ; since his unusual thoughts airaed at unusual actions, it
was natural that the one should be watched in and with the
other. Before we see why and how the grievous charge of
atheisra was made against hira, we shall have to give a picture
of his philosophy, as far as the nature of these lectures allows.
I shall, however, here first give sorae extracts frora Fichte's
letters to his wife, which show how he was regarded by the
students, how highly he estimated himself, how boldly he
spoke about raatters and things, and how firra he thought he
stood with the governraent, in spite of his opponents, while
soon after it was quite different. " Last Friday," he writes.
May 26th, 1794, "I delivered ray first lecture. The largest
lecture-roora in Jena was too sraall, the entire entrance-hall,
the yard was full, on desks and benches they stood over one
another.^ .... It is trae that the students had a
general prejudice in my favour, which I certainly did not de
stroy by my presence. My lecture, so far as I have heard, has
been received with universal approbation. When I deal with
thera personaUy, I ara very friendly and courteous, place my
self on an equal footing with thera, and thus vrin their confid
ence. . . . My relations to ray colleagues are also very
pleasant. I can now say raore confidently that all have re
ceived me with open arms, and that many worthy men are
seeking my special corapany. ... I keep myseff in a
certain state of candour, ara kind, open, and friendly to aU."
Further on he writes : " The course has opened favourably.
Respect araong the students and a certain decorura also create
respect araong- the professors, rainisters, etc. The duke con
versed -^^ ith me a long time. Goethe continuaUy shows him-
' So it was, at one time, also with Melancthon at -U'lttenberg.

JOHN GOTTLIEB FICHTE. 307
self a warra friend of raine. And I have reason to beheve
that the duke himself would rejoice in being able to do sorae
thing for rae."
Then again : " Be careful not to believe it, if some of these
days it should be written to Zurich, that I have been called
to an account in Weimar for my teachings, that I have been
prohibited from writing this or that  In all Ger
many I am now the subject of general sarcasra, and everj--
where strange reports are spread about rae. This, however,
is very fine ; it shows that I ara not altogether disregarded.
The truth of my relations to our government ife this ; un
hmited confidence is placed in my integrity and prudence, and
plain hints have been given rae to teach entirely according to
my convictions, and that I shall be defended powerfully against
all injury."
And in another letter of July 21st: "You look at the
German sovereigns very strangely through your Zurich spec
tacles. What your aristocrats would do, if they had the
power, that you expect frora ours, because they have the
power. The only difference is, that ours are not quite so
stupid as yours. You are like the cow-herd boy, who desired
to be king, so that he might be able to besmear his bread
-\rith as much syrup as he wanted ; just so your aristocrats
judge, and the rest of you look through their spectacles.
No one shall injure me, of this I assure you in
few words. I offer no weak side, and I have heart and
courage" In order to estimate the Fichtean philosophy and its influ
ence on the Protestant Church and theology, which indeed
was only transient, so far as it agrees with the object of these
lectures, we must comraence with Kant, whora Fichte at flrst
joined with the greatest enthusiasra, till, going beyond his
master, he announced his systera, which in its essential prin
ciples contradicted that of Kant and produced a rupture in
the philosophical school, which, to this hour, is not healed.
1 must, however, here reraark, that it cannot be ray purpose
to give a scientiflc representation of Fichte's systera, just as I
have not given such of Kant. This raust be left for the his
tory of philosophy, frora which we only take what is neces-

308 JOHN GOTTLIEB FICHTE.
sary for our purpose. For this reason we raust refrain frora
passing a judgment on the Fichtean phUosophy itself; for we
would only be entitled to do this if we were able to exaraine
the connection of the systera with Fichte's personality, and
the internal organic connection of the systera itseff. We only
speak of the impression which the systera has left in the con
sciousness of the Church and of the commotions it has oc
casioned ; and therefore only form that conception of it which
is necessary to comprehend to sorae degree that impression
and those coraraotions.
Kant started frora this, that the knowledge of raan is
limited by space and tirae, and that he can know nothing of
God and divine things by raeans of the pure reason, whilst as
araends for this he denoted God and imraortality as require
raents of the practical reason ; above aU, however, he repre
sented morality, deraanded by the categorical iraperative as
the essence of all religion. So Fichte, too, flrst of all, placed
hiraself on this subjective stand-point of restrained and limited
human knowledge. According to hira, too, we do not know
the essence of things, but only as they appear to us in our
present condition. But whilst Kant accepted a real world
objective to raan, and only raade the conception and con
templation of the sarae dependent on the arrangeraent of our
knowledge, Fichte went farther, in the course of tirae, in this,
naraely, that he regarded the entire objective world itself
a product of the huraan raind, as a reflection of the creations
of the raind, which originate and raove in us, either uncon
sciously or consciously. Nothing had reality for hira, except
the Ego (Ich), or the consciousness which, however, he did
not think as soraething resting, idle, but as a continual act,
as a creative power. In opposition to the plain, common
sense of raan, which siraply insists that there is a world and
in it a raultitude of things perceived by our own senses, and
of which we afterwards raake representations (images) in our
rainds he asserted that there are representations, iraages in us,
which we flrst attain unconsciously, and then through con
tinued thinking. Man first creates the things in thinking,
represents thera to hiraseff, places thera before hira by think
ing, and in so far they exist for him. First of aU the con-

JOHN GOTTLIEB FICHTE. 309
sciousness forms itself in raan, or, in Fichte's words, the Ego
sets (fixes) itself," (das Ich setzt sich selbst). This is the first
act of our consciousness (or the first act of which we are con
scious). With this connects itself the second act of our con
sciousness, naraely that the Ego (I) can also think that which
differs frora it, which is not Ego, Nicht — Ich. " The Ego
sets a non-Ego " (das Ich setzt ein Nicht Ich). Of this non-
Ego (not I) man, however, knows only that it is the contrary
of Ego. It is nothing which has a real, independent exist
ence (out of our rainds), nothing raaterial, substantial, having
extension in space. That which appears to us, as raatter or
as substance, is rather only a raoraentary checking of our
thinking (just as the raoraentary congealing of a stream).
That, too, which we caU spirit, is not a substance, soraething
conceivable out of us ; therefore Fichte avoided the expres
sions of spirit and soul, because by these we are apt to under
stand soraething itself spiritless, something dead, unsubstantial,
or ghost-like. He withdrew himself siraply to the Ego,
which, however, as already remarked, must not be thought as
a resting, existing Ego, as one receiving its impressions from
without, but as a productive power, a continually active and
creative Ego. According to the above, it was quite consist
ent if this Idealism, this philosophy of the Ego, sought to
remove from our notion of God, all that raight remind us of
anything material or substantial. Even the Scriptural ex
pression, " God is a Spirit," was not fine and spiritual enough
for our philosopher, since by spirit might easily be understood
a personaUy restrained, hance a liraited, being. Therefore
Fichte says: "God is not Existence, but pure Action, just as
I too am not existence, but pure action. God ceases to be
infinite as soon as He is raade an object of an idea, as soon
as He is to be represented definitely to our rainds, is to be
comprehended. Every conception of God is an idol. If we
abstract all that liraits God, aU that raakes Hira comprehensi
ble to us, there reraains for us a Being quite incoraprehen
sible, pure Consciousness, Intelligence, spiritual Life (vrithout
any farther definition)." Thus Fichte finally found no other
expression for denoting God than thc Ego, in so far, of course,
as it is not conceived as liraited, personal, individual, but as
an absolute Ego, transcending all finiteness and Umitation.

310 JOHN GOTTLIEB FICHTE.
He also called it the moral order of the luorld. It would
certainly be doing Fichte injustice to interpret his system to
mean that he wanted to raake hiraself, J. G. Fichte, God.
Against this he protested raost soleranly, and it always re
quires little art, but on that account a raore hateful disposition,
to draw such conclusions frora preraises which are not under
stood in their connection with the entire systera. We raight
say with raore propriety that Fichte, like Spinoza, rather
denied the existence of the world than of God ; that he
apparently denied the existence of God, in order to conceive
Hira very spiritually ; for he did not want anything which is
created to be attached to the Creator, lest He should be dragged
down into the sphere of the finite. This atterapt to .spiritualize
may even have a deep religious ground ; it arouses frora in
dolence the thinking raind, which is too apt to think of God
in an anthroporaorphitic raanner, or which properly thinks
nothing, but siraply repeats thoughtless words and formulas,
of which it can give no explanation. Fichte was not the
first who atterapted this intellectual soaring. Former
thinkers, and indeed very Christian men araong them,^ had
to subrait to the degradation by the masses of what they
gave as the expression of a mind struggling for proper ideas
of God, to common-place refiections and wilful misrepresen
tations or ignorant distortions. It was said of many that
they did not believe in God, because they did not conceive
Him as materially and plainly as the masses. At the sarne
time there is something dangerous in this striving, even if it
may proceed frora a noble disposition ; for it raay finally
happen that by means of this diluting and spiritualizing pro
cess, everything will really vanish in mist, and that from the
pure beholding of the sun the eye will raore and more envelope
itself in darkness. We ought certainly to be conscious of
the fact that we, as raen, can only know God in a human
raanner, that all our expressions in reference to Hira are
figurative and do not correspond to His nature ; but since we
are raen, limited beings, we ought in huraility to use the lan
guage adapted to our wants, and of which God hiraseff was
not asharaed, when He condescended to reveal Himself to us.
' We need but think of Origen and his opponents, or of J. Scotus Erigena and
the later sects of the Middle Ages.

JOHN GOTTLIEB FICHTE. 311
Let those philosophers, therefore, who atterapt to lead ra-m
beyond hiraself into a region in which even our inner senses
disappear and where we can no longer have a footing, be ac
countable, if, vrithout regard to the irapression which it raakes
upon other minds, they speak a language, necessarUy sub
jected to misunderstanding on account of its remoteness frora
other human language; and they must also submit to the
opposition which their bold speech occasions. Fichte was a
teacher of Academic youths. At his feet sat many who were
destined to proclaim to Christian congregations the God of
the Gospel ; a God, who is only Creator, if there are creatures
of His creation, who has called a world into being, not as a
visionary but as an actual, a real world ; a world in which
sin, misery, and affliction appear but too real, frora which the
mere imagination that they do not exist cannot save us,
but which can only be reraoved by a higher reality, a divine
fact, by God's act of love, as it appears historically in the
redemption through Christ. If now the ground were taken
from under the feet of those destined to proclaira such a doc
trine, if nothing religious remained for them but their mis
erable Ego, of which they were not even as fully and ener
geticaUy conscious as Fichte of his, raust not many just
scruples have arisen in the minds of those too who were not
accustomed to restrain the freedora of investigation hastily ?
A difficult question now arose, which since then has frequently
been asked, and which is, indeed, founded in the twofold
nature of Protestantisra, whether for the sake of learning
free course shall be given to free investigation and a free
publication of the results of the investigation, or whether
restrictions shall be made for the interest of the Church, to
which also belong the weak and the young. We call it a
difficult question, because we do not like to give our uncondi
tional approval to one side or the other. What would claim
approval in one case might deserve blame in another. Where
the acts are' not finished, it is easy to do injustice to one or
the other party. From a predilection in favour of learning,
feith raay be wronged, and frora a zeal for the faith investiga
tion may be iraproperly opposed ; and if this difficulty is great
even to an honest raind, it must be doubly so, when passions
are excited on both sides. It raay also be conjectured that

3 1 2 JOHN GOTTLIEB FICHTE.
it was SO in the process against Fichte, which threw him out
of the midst Qf his very brilliant career. Fichte was charged
with no less an error than atheism, and to this day the
learned are not agreed, whether this oft-abused terra raay be
applied to Fichte's systera as represented in his Wissen
schaftslehre. To this raust be added, as Fichte hiraself re
raarks, that his deraocracy was as rauch a thorn in the eyes
of his opponents as his atheism. The fact tb.at he disregarded
all established customs offended raany. He chose Sunday for
the purpose of dehvering moral lectures to the students. In
this the consistory of Weiraar, of which at that time Herder
was a raeraber, thought they recognized the secret intention
of gradually underraining public worship, although Fichte
protested solemnly against this, and appealed to the example
of Gellert, whose raoral lectures had also been delivered on
Sunday, and to the fact, that the theatre in Weimar was
opened on Sunday, and why not then the philosophical
lecture roora ?
This dispute about reading lectures on Sunday was, how
ever, only tbe prelude to a fiercer contest. Fichte published
a work, " On the grounds of our Faith in the Divine Govern
ment of the World," in which the moral order of the world
was denoted as God, and the assertion was raade that we
need and can conceive of no other God. " The existence
of this God cannot be doubted ; it is the raost certain of all
things, and the ground of all other certainty ; but the idea of
God as a particular substance is irapossible and contradictory.
It is proper to say this candidly to strike down the prating
of the schools, so that the true religion of doing right cheer
fuUy raay be elevated." Many pious rainds, of course, took
offence at these expressions. Although Fichte raight be
satisfied with this raoral order of the world, the Christian's
faith in God, a faith too in " doing right cheerfully," but at
the sarae tirae in a real God, could by no raeans be con
tent with this phUosophical theory. This faith would not,
however, have been destroyed by this theory, even if no
interdiction had been issued against it. Such an interdic
tion appeared. The book in which Fichte advocated the
theory of the divine order of the world was attacked in the
Electorate of Saxony, and from this place the attention of

JOHN GOTTLIEB FICHTE. 3 1 3
the court of Weiraar was called to the dangers of Fichte's
doctrine, " as one not only openly hostile to the Christian,
but even to natural religion." In the written requisition of
Dec. 18, 1798, it is said; "Since experience teaches suffi
ciently what raournful consequences for the general welfare,
and especially for the safety of the States,^ result frora the
tolerance of these unholy efforts to increase the inclination
(already too prevalent to infidelity, and to b.anish the ideas^
of God and religion frora the hearts of raan ; therefore we
cannot be indifferent in reference to our land, when teachers
in neighbouring countries openly and fearlessly avow such
dangerous principles." The government of Weiraar was
therefore called upon by its Saxon neighbour, "to punish the
author of the essay, according to his desert, and in general
to make such strict arrangements, that sirailar raischief ma
he checked powerfully in the University of Jena and also i
the Gymnasia and other schools ;" to whieh was added the
threat, tbat if this was not acquiesced in, the Electorate of
Saxony would forbid its children the privilege of visiting the
University of Jena. Sirailar summonses, to prohibit the circu
lation of the accused writings, were sent to the other Protes
tant courts. Hanover compUed with the request, whilst
Prussia., which ten years previous had issued the strict religi
ous edict,^ refused to acquiesce. Yes, it was Pi-ussia which
kindled the first ray of hope in Fichte, that if he was driven
from Saxony, he would find a retreat in its States. And this
actually occurred. Fichte, however, having raade an appeal
to the public, anticipated a formal dismission, by handing in
his resignation, which was accepted.
Encouraged by tbe Prussian rainister Dohra, Fichte went

' Hinc illae lacrimae !
' What confusion in speaking of ideas which are to be banished from the
heart! Ideas are only banished from the head, but therefore religion does not
depend on ideas. She would first have to be banished from the heart, which
no human philosophy can ever accomplish. The heart indeed may become
corrupt, when the head is giddy or confused ; but then the remedy does not
consist in ideas, the renovation must commence with the depths of the heart, and
this is only done by the Spirit of God.
' July 1788, by Fred. Will. IL, against the errors of Socinians, Deists^
Naturalists and others, which were spread under the name of "Enlighten
ment."— Tr.

314 JOHN GOTTLIEB FICHTE.
to Berlin, where he arrived on tbe first of July 1799 ; and
when the king (Frederic WiUiara III.) was inforraed of the
fact, he replied : "If Fichte is so quiet a citizen, so far from
all dangerous alliances, as I understand hira to be, I wiUingly
grant him a retreat in my States. It is not the business of
the State to give a decision in ifeference to his religious prin
ciples." According to Fichte's own letter to his wife, it
seeras as if the king had said : " If it is true that he is at
enraity vrith God, then God raay decide the matter with
him, it is nothing to rae ;" a raode of expression which brings
to memory Frederick the Great. Enough ! Fichte, relying on
the word of the king, spent the suramer and autumn alone in
Berlin, and then also brought his faraily thither from Jena.
The letters which he wrote to his wife frora Berlin, plainly
bear the raarks of raental disquietude, arising frora infficted
injustice. The following expression is valuable to give us
an idea ofthe state of his raind at that tirae: " Sin^e I have
no humility, I suppose I shall have to be proud, so as to
have soraething to bring rae through the world." The im
pression which Fichte's appeal to the public raade on his
friends was various. Whilst sorae placed hira by the side
of Luther, whose lot they thought he shared, and pointed
to the legions who would assist him in the cause of enlighten
ment ; others used the occasion to turn Fichte's thoughts
to himseff, and to remind hira that his fate was not alto
gether uncalled for, but that it was rather the philosophical
intolerance which had called forth the political as a counter
action. To these sincere and well-raeaning friends Lavater
belongs. In this raatter, as in general, he despised the inter
ference of rough physical force with the contests of the
intellectual powers. "Where there is light (so he wrote
to Fichte on the 12th of Sept. 1795), there is also opposi
tion frora without ; where there is life, there the raore Ufeless
revolts, by means of nuraber and coalition. This we all
experience ! Every day I see raore clearly that internal
power excites external force against it, that positive force is
etemaUy warring against its natural, real, inherent power
As the flesh opposes the spirit, so the world (the force of
number) opposes those minds which disregard this force.
Your condition and your philosophy, what a contrast ! 0,

JOHN GOTTLIEB FICHTE. 315
my dear friend ! through what morasses and contrasts we
must work our way." We have already seen how he turned
off the charge of atheisra, which was raade against Fichte in
a poem, by pointing to Fichte's personality. Now, however,
after Fichte's appeal to the public had appeared, Lavater
wrote hira on the 7th of Feb. 1799, the foUowing: "Your
heart loves the truth, even if your understanding raust look
with a kind of pity down upon raine, which cannot touch the
lowest part of yours.^ My flrst feeling was that of corapas
sion because you were attacked with such a dictatorial spirit,
that no questions were first asked of you personally in refer
ence to your opinions, and that the course of a worthy
humanity was not taken. But, permit rae to say it with the
same openness, I was soraewhat displeased to read so raany
sharp and trifiing remarks against your opponents. Do you
pot think, ray dear Sir, that it would have been better for
your person and the cause of good, if you had treated thera
somewhat more gently and had done more justice to their
intentions ? . . Lt is evidently the prevailing philosophy,
hy which the Church is oppressed. In what does the prevail
ing philosophical Church distinguish itseff frora every coraraon
orthodox or hierarchical Church ? Certainly not in tolerance
and indulgence, certainly not in mildness and forbearance
against its opponents, who scarcely dare open their raouths
any more ! What volumes of inhuraan judgraents, prostitu
tions, low insults, and cruelties might be gathered for publica
tion ! How often has this been represented to the critical
philosophers, and what good has it done ? And let rae say
it freely, your very appeal is very far frora being free from
this harshness and intolerance." And now Lavater declares
with aU frankness that his (Fichte's) God was not the God
of Christianity, not the God whora huraanity needs or is
prepared for. . . . " There is (he writes) araong a
million men scarcely one who can jump beyond himself so far
as to thUik or even feel the least, at the contemplation of
such a God as yours, and a God in the contemplation of
whom we can neither think nor feel the least, is not only no
God, but for those who thereby think and feel nothing, an
absolute non-entity."
' Literally, which does not reach to the heels of yonr understanding. — ^Tr.

316 JOHN GOTTLIEB FICHTE.
Fichte did not receive this letter of Lavater's very favour
ably. He thus expresses himself in reference to it to the
philosopher Reinhold : " Lavater has also written rae. Be
sides the coraraon raisapprehension of the true raeaning of
phUosophy, he has also still a faith founded on authority, in
Christ, Paul, etc., or to speak raore properly in his Zurich
Interpretation of the Bible, which raakes it irapossible for me
to correct his ideas. I answered him briefly that he did not
understand rae, and proraised hira a more detailed answer
which, on account of ray disgust of the entire affair, I shall
likely have to owe hira forever."
This unfriendly position, which the so-called scientific
stand-point assumed in reference to that of faith, continually
became raore hostile to Protestant Christianity, and we suffer
frora it to this day. It seems as if raen did not want to
understand each other, but desired to raade the variance and
chasra continually greater, instead of healing the difficulty ;
and yet it is reraarkable in the case of Fichte, that after he
had reraoved himself farthest from the common Christian
feeling, he was led nearer and nearer it again. It was the
very settlement in Berlin, too, which prepared a crisis for
Fichte's inner life. The younger Fichte says of his father;
" The deeper reflection of the spirit on itseff, the proper com
pletion and last maturitj'- in his systera and views of life
begin with the epoch when be, free from all the pressing of
prevaiUng and opposing opinions, unconcerned about the ap
probation or rejection of others, occupied himself only with
self-cultivation. . . . A religious manner of con
teraplating the world afterwards manifested itself in him,
rendering hira milder and solving raany difficulties ; and this
raanner of conteraplation he embraced with no little confidence
and power." Fichte himself, in the course of time, did not
vrish that the conflict had not occuned, for it had become
the occasion to him of penetrating to tbe living fountain of
inner invigoration. A conversion in its comraon acceptation,
i. e., a complete return to the orthodox doctrines of the
Church, or a surrendering of his speculative stand-point, and
a withdrawal to the purely devotional and practical can not
be expected from a mind like Fichte's, rauch less a jumping
frora one extrerae to the other or a sudden change of his

JOHN GOTTLIEB FICHTE.

3]7

language. Nor would rauch have been gained by this, either
for Fichte or the cause of truth in general ; for, however
much danger for practical Christianity accompanied the in
creasing speculative tendency in Gerraany, stiU we will not
deny that in it was manifested a freshness and quickness of
spirit, which pointed to a revivification of the religious ideas,
to an approaching spiritual regeneration of all religious
thinking. " The thought of a living God," says the younger
Fichte, " delivering raan frora the servitude of imperfection,
and the wiU frora the Tantalus labour of an endless struggling
by means of the knowledge of the truth, that by Hira the
good will, humility, and love are taken for the deed, this
simple thought, which had forraerly been active in faith and
experience, was far reraoved from tbe education of that age.
For the recovery of this thought, the sanction of science and
high mental improvement was necessary, both of which had
torn themselves from faith. It is thus a remarkable fact
that the very idealisra of Fichte, which led hira to the abyss
of atheism, had to serve the purpose of leading to the deeper
fundamental ideas of Christianity, to the idea of an entire
yielding of the soul to God and of the blessing which lies in
the communion vrith God in this Ufe afready, in opposition
to the dry intellectual view of God, and of opposing to
the one-sided moral stand-point, which had been adopted
since Kant — one truly religious, in the deeper sense of
the word.
After Fichte had again caUed attention to the deep im- ,
portance of faith, in the book " Die Bestiraraung des Men-
schen," which was published in Berlin at the close of the
last century; after he had pointed out the iraportance of
Christianity, " as the only true religion " in history, and the
great iraportance of the Christian state in the " Grundziige
des gegenwartigen Zeitalters," he atterapted, especiaUy in his
"Anweisungen zura sehgen Leben oder Religionslehre," a
course of popular lectures, deUvered in BerUn, 1806, to prove
the agreeraent of his philosophy of that tirae with the princi
ples of Christianity, which he regarded in a light entirely
different from Kant. Kant and the RationaUsts placed the
essence of Christianity chiefly in raoraUty and the fulfilraent
of the moral law, and, in accordance with this, esteeraed and

3 1 8 JOHN GOTTLIEB FICHTE.
used with a special predilection those passages of Scripture, in
which the various raoral precepts are drawn in distinct out
lines, as for instance, the Serraon On the Mount, and several
Parables of Jesus in the first three Gospels (whilst they had
no taste for John, who appeared to them a raystic) ; Fichte,
on the other hand, threw hiraself on the Fourth Gospel, and
regarded it as the only true source of the genuine doctrine of
Christ ; he of course did this in a one-sided raanner, and
with a denial of the other truths of Scripture, which belong
fully as rauch to the totality of Christian doctrine and history
as the Gospel of John.
" Only with John," says Fichte, " can the philosopher
agree, for he alone has regard for reason, and appeals to the
proof, which the philosopher recognises — the inner proof
' If any raan will do the will of Him that sent rae, he shall
know of the doctrine, whether it be of God.' ....
The other announcers of Christianity build upon the external
deraonstration through rairacles which, to us at least, proves
nothing. Besides this, of all the Gospels, John contains
what we seek and need, religious doctrines, whilst the best
that the others give, is, without raaking up the deficiencies
and interpreting by John, nothing more than morality, which
has a very subordinate value with us." With these last
words, Fichte renounced most decidedly Kant and the Kan
tian Rationalisra, and tumed towards Mysticisra, which values
the inner abiding relation to God infinitely raore than the
accidental and transient raanifestation of the disposition in
the external relations of life. Whilst, however, he again
brought the Gospel of John to honour, he could, as little as
the Rationalists, or perhaps stiU less, agree with the Chris
tianity of Paul ; he denotes it in the raost incorapreben,sib]e
manner a degeneration of all Christianity, and wbj'- ? Because
Fichte, with all his approach towards that which is Christian,
ignored entirely the nature of sin and the contrast between
sin and rederaption, which Paul holds up so prominently,
and expected salvation only frora a direct union with God, a
union boldly juraping over the contrast by an ideal leap.
" Christianity (he says, in contradiction to Paul) is not a
raeans of reconciliation or of expiation ; raan can never sepa
rate hiraself frora God, and in so far as he imagines himself

JOHN GOTTLIEB FICHTE. 319
separated from Him, he is a nothing, and therefore cannot
sm, but around his brow the oppressive Ulusion of. sin only
places itself, to lead him to the true God." Here of course
he might have leamed from John, if he did not want to hear
Paul : " If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves,
and the truth is not in us." (1 John i. 8.)
The iraraediateness of the relation between Christ and the
Father, as it is especially represented in the Gospel of John,
was taken by him as the expression of the relation that
should exist between God and man generally. And this was
right. He, however, took that which ought to be, and to
which man can only come by purification after rauch struggle,
and through connection with the Redeemer (for it has not
yet appeared what we shall be) as afready present, and in
this again shows hiraself an Idealist, i. e., unjiractical and un
historical. Nevertheless, it raay produce a peculiar interest
to follow a thinker like Fichte, in a tirae which had turned
away to a great degree frora the fundaraental truths of Chris
tianity, and to see how he anayed Christianity so as to suit
himself; how he again returned vrith his language to the
Christian mode of expression ; how he, without being cora
peUed by any despotic coraraand from without, through which
he would never have suffered himself to be forced, was con
strained to give the honour to eternal truth ; and although
much of that which Fichte proclairaed as Christianity was
still controlled by the ideas, and expressed in the language
of the school, we shall nevertheless feel a railder air blowing
around us, than that whicii blew against us so sharp and
cutting frora the Wissenschaftslehre. The only real entity
(Sein), these are the principal thoughts in his Religionslehi-e,
is the Absolute or God. This absolute entity (Sein), how
ever, is not only, does not reraain hid in itself ; it has also an
existence (Dasein), that is, a revelation, a raanifestation of
itseff. God reveals Hiraself in us, in our consciousness, and
it is only the multifarious, much divided world, which draws
us from God ; we ought, however, to compress the eternal
One (das ewige Eine) into a great focus of our spfritual life.
This we can do religiously by faith, scientifically through the
idea. Our finite Ego raust take up in itseff the absolute Ego
by faith and by thought, and in tbis intimate union consist

320 JOHN GOTTLIEB FICHTE.
salvation and eternal life. Fichte expresses hiraself in a
simple and coraprehensible raanner, in reference to this mat
ter, thus : " Do you want to see God face to face, as He is in
Hiraself? Do not seek Hira beyond the clouds ; thou canst
find Hira, wheiever thou art. View the life of those who
are devoted to Him, and thou beholdest Him ; yield thyself
to Hira, and thou findest Hira in thy breast."
If we remarked before, that Fichte regarded morality as
soraething subordinate, he raeant that raorality, which estimates
the value of actions raore according to their external significa
tion, their use in the world, &c. He very properly opposed
this raorality of expediency and the Pharisaism of work -holi
ness, and showed, from the true Protestant standpoint, how
all depends on the innei" disposition vrith which we act and
on the faith whence these works proceed. In this respect he
was not so far frora St. Paul, as he generally appears to separate
from hira. " Religion," he says,^ " is not raere devotional
drearaing, it is not a business which can be followed on cer
tain days or at certain hours, independent of other business ;
but it is the inner Spirit which penetrates all our ....
thought and action, and immerses them in itseff. ....
It does not depend on the sphere, in which one acts. . . .
To hira who has only a hurable vocation, this humble voca
tion itself is sanctified by religion, and through it receives, if
not the raaterial, still the forra of the higher morality, for
which nothing more is necessary, than that we recognise and
love the will of God on and in us. He who tills the ground
in this faith or performs the most unpretending manual labour
with fidelity, is higher and happier than he who, without this
faith (if this were possible), would bless huraanity for a thou
sand years." Luther had said soraething quite sirailar, that
the servant who sweeps the house, can do it in faith ; conse
quently in a raanner pleasing to God. This is the morality
of subjectiveness, as Christianity (in direct opposition to ancient
heathenisra) and as especially Protestantisra requires it, and
here we find Fichte on the right foundation. Let us add to
this a few raore of his expressions, which agree perfectly with
' His expressions, too, in reference to the free will, in his addresses to the
German nation, are entirely Pauline.

JOHN GOTTLIEB FICHTE. 321
the very essence of the Gospel : " Love is higher than all
reason, is itseff the source of reason and the root of reality, the
only creatress of lffe and of tirae ; . . . . she is, as in
general, the source of truth and certainty, so also the source
of perfected truth in the true raan and in his life." " The
liring life is love, and, as love, it owns and possesses what is
beloved, is embraced and penetrated by it, blended and mingled
with it, and is eternally one and the same love 
In so far as man is love, and this he is in the root of his life
always, he reraains ever and eternaUy the one, the trae, the
eternal, just as God himself, .... and it is not a bold
metaphor, but literal truth, what John says : ' He that dweUeth
(remains) in love dwelleth (remains) in God, and God in him.' ' '
" Salvation itself consists in love, and the eternal peace pro
duced by love, and is unaccessible to reflection ; conception
can only express it negatively (can only say what it is not).
It cannot be described positively, but can only be felt irarae
diately. Doubt raakes us miserable, drives us hither and
thither, and spreads out before us an impenetrable night, in
which our feet can flnd no safe path. The religious man is
eternaUy freed frora the possibility of doubt and uncertainty.
He knows definitely every moraent, what he wills and ought
to wUL Since for him the inmost root of his life, his will,
comes undeniably always from Divinity, whose nod is infaUible,
and for that which the nod indicates he has an unerring eye,
he knows certainly every moftient what he shaU know through
aU eternity, what he wUls and ought to vrill, that through all
eternity the fountain of divine love, which has been opened in
him, wUl not becorae dry, but will preserve hira and lead hira
eternally. This fountain is tbe root of bis existence ; he has
beheld it clearly and his eye is fixed on it vrith deep love ;
how could the forraer ever dry up, how the latter ever tum
in another direction? Nothing occurring around him sur
prises him. Whether he comprehends it or not, of one thing
he is certain, that it is in God's world, and that in this there
can be nothing which does not tend to good. He has no fear
in reference to the future, for the absolutely Blessed is ever
leading hira towards it."
If now we ask, how did Fichte consider all this as brought
about by Christianity, we shall find that the person of Jesus
X

322 JOHN GOTTLIEB FICHTE.
had with him a signification entirely different from that of the
Rationalists. He does not behold in Hira the teacher of
morality, nor siraply the moral example. No, exactly that
oneness with God, as Christ expresses it in the Gospel of John,
exactly that real unity with the Father, which the RationaUsts
desired to remove as a raetaphysical forraula of no use to
raorality, was to him the heart and the star of the Gospel.
On this account he held hiraself so closely to John and his
doctrine of the Logos having becorae fiesh, in which he beheld
the fulness of all religious knowledge. We would, however,
raake a great mistake, if from this we concluded that Fichte
agreed vrith the old orthodox doctrine in reference to Christ.
What this doctrine regarded as an historical fact, which had
occurred once, that Fichte regarded as a fact eternally repeat
ing itseff, as occurring in every religious raan. Christ was
not tbe Saviour to hira in the old sense ; He was only the re
presentative of that which is continuaUy occurriug still. " The
eternal Word becoraes flesh at all times, in every one, without
exception, who understands, in a living raanner, his oneness
with God, and who reaUy yields his entire individual life to
the divine Ufe in him, . . quite in the same manner as in
Christ Jesus." It is true Fichte acknowledges that the insight
into this absolute unity of human existence with the divine did
not occur before Jesus ; but this is a raatter of indifference to
hira, a raere historical observation on which but little depends.
'' Is any one united with God," he says, " then it is aU the
sarae in what way he becarae so ; and it were a very useless
and wrong occupation continuaUy to repeat the remembrance
of the way instead of Uving in the matter." We think, how
ever, that it is of great value to know this way, and Fichte
hiraself acknowledges that all those, who, since the time of
Jesus, have come to a union with God, have only done so
through and by means of hira ; yes, " till the end of time
(this is Fichte's honest and open confession) all the sensible
will bow low before this Jesus of Nazareth, and all vriU
hurably acknowledge tbe exceeding glory of this great
' phenoraenon.' " He, however, thinks that Christ Himseff
does not lay the sarae stress in this recognition as the Church.
He thought, like Herder, that in case Jesus (as human in
di-vidual), wonld return to the world. He would be perfectly

JOHN GOTTLIEB FICHTE. 323
satisfied ff He only found Christianity prevailing in the souls
of men, whether His merits were praised in connection with
this or were disregarded ; " for this is in fact the least," he
says, " that could be expected of such a man who afready
when He lived on earth sought not His own honour, but the
honour of Him that sent Hira." Fichte is quite right in say
ing that Christ did not seek this honour for His own sake ;
and we, too, believe that a living Christianity, even with
many dogmatical errors in reference to the person of Jesus,
yes, even with a partial denial of this personality, is better than
that orthodox repetition of " Lord ! Lord !" without the proper
spirit and proper disposition. But Christ and Christianity,
person and raatter, the historical and raetaphysical, can not be
separated^ as arbitrarUy, as Fichte seeras to suppose ; hence
love, which Fichte hiraself has so beautifully and enthusiasti
caUy given the pre-erainence as the essence of all religion, the
more it obtains the predorainance over the prejudices of the
understanding, vrill involuntarily turn again to the person
from whora it proceeds, and because it is personal love, love to
Christ, it vrill become deeper and more fruitful.
At all events, Fichte has the merit of having dfrected the
attention to the soul of religion, and of having freed it from
the servitude of mere morality. Although so raany, and
even orthodox Christians, had conceived eternal life only as
future, as in another world, and though Kant had founded
the faith in God and imraortality chiefly on the necessity of
a retribution in another world, Fichte placed eternal life
(quite in accordance with Scripture) in this, that we know
God here, love Hira, and feel ourselves united to Him in
blessed coraraunion ; and this living in God was to Hira, even
in the earlier period of his life, before speculation had grown
too strong for hira, the sure guarantee for the future, just as
it again becarae the same in his later years. Already in 1 7 9 0
he had written from Leipzig to Miss Rahn : " Our understand
ing is too sraaU to be a dweUing for Divinity, for this our
heart only is a worthy house. The safest raeans of assuring
ourselves of a life after death, is this — to lead such a Ufe here
that we can desire a future one. Whoever feels that, if there
'This arbitrary separation still belongs entirely to the stand-point of the
Kantian Rationalism.

324 JOHN GOTTLIEB FICHTE,
is a God, He raust look down upon hira graciously, is not
raoved by any arguraents against His existence, and needs
none for it. He who has sacrificed so rauch for virtue, that
he can expect araends in a future life,^ does not prove and
believe the existence of such a life ; he feels it. United, my
dear helpmate, for this span of life and for eternity, we will
strengthen this conviction, not by proofs, but by actions."
Thus, too, he despises, in his "Anweisungen zura seligen Le
ben," the prospect of a refined, sensible prosperity in another
life ; because it rests on egoisra, on personal self-love. The
love of God, however, is to exterrainate self-love ; it is alone
to fiU the heart, and where it fills the heart it is already in
this world the source of salvation. It does not depend upon
the circurastances in which we live, here or there ; God, who
is to-day what he wiU be in all eternity, wants to raake us
happy through Hiraself, and thus there is no eternal lffe
without Him, either in or beyond this world, except in
Him. Fichte, as well as Schleierraacher after hira, showed
that there raay be such a thing as an immoral and irreUgious
faith in immortality, such a one, as seeks only itself in the
other world, not God. " This mode of thinking, expressed in
tbe forra of a prayer," says Fichte, " would run thus : ' Lord,
ray wUl only be done, and that, indeed, during all, and on that
account blessed eternity, and for this Thou shalt have Thy
vrill in this short and raiserable temporal life ;' whilst the truly
pious pray thus : ' Lord, Thy wiU only be done, and by this
means raine is done, for I have no other will than this, that
Thy will be done.'" We shaU afterwards see how this dis
position could degenerate to a resignation of pride, which is
very different frora Christian submission, and how the sen
tence, true in itself, that eternal life is to coraraence here, was
perverted into this, that it is only to be had here. It was
very iraportant that in opposition to the torpidity of the moral
religious disposition, into which a great part of the cotem
poraries had sunk, the attention was directed to the great im
portance of this life especially when so powerful a personality
as Fichte's assisted in making the irapression deep. And
now we will tum our attention again for a moraent to this
personaUty. ' Here, of conrse, the Kantian philosophy made its appearance, bnt modified
by adoptins immediate feeling.

JOHN GOTTLIEB FICHTE. 325
With all the ruggedness and angularity, which we en
counter in Fichte's conduct, his high nobiUty of raind cannot
be denied. Fichte's character proves itself Protestant,^ re
formatory, not only in the sphere of thought, but especially
in that of life and raorality. Just as he knew how to check
the rudeness of student Ufe, and was anxious to prevent duels
by instituting courts of honour, so too, in times of poUtical
distress, he was one of the first who atterapted to raise the
sunken national feeling again, and " to inspire the disconsolate
with courage and hope." He aimed at this in his fine "ad
dresses to the German nation," which he delivered in the
University of Berlin in the vrinter of 1808-1809, whilst his
voice was often drowned by French druras passing through
the streets, and when weU-known spies were present in the
lecture-room. Several tiraes even the report was spread
through the city that he had been seized and led away by the
enemy. It is not the place here to enter raore closely into
an exaraination of the contents of these speeches, or to follow
the active part which Fichte in his last days took in the Ger
man war for freedora. We wUl only refer to it so as to render
the picture of the man complete.
Fichte expected the greatest blessings frora a better educa
tion, one which not raerely brings the coraraand to be virtu
ous frora without, but strengthens the vrill by love. " The
rosy morn of the new world," he exclairas araong other things,
" has afready appeared and gUds the mountain tops, and pre
figures the day that is to corae." Fichte did not live to see
the longed-for day of freedora. In the newly-founded Uni
versity of BerUn, he could act but a short tirae longer as
teacher. In the spring of 1808, as he was about to cora-
mence his philosophical lectures, he was attacked with a
dangerous sickness, frora which he, however, recovered. After
wards there were many intenuptions by the preparations for
war; in the meantirae he had begun his lectures in the
vrinter of 1813, when in 1814 his wife was attacked with a
' His philosophy was called hy Fr. Schlegel, Protestantism carried to its
farthest results. And that Fichte hiraself believed in a further progress of
Protestantism, in which progress he felt himself a powerful agent, see " Grund
ziige des gegenw"artigen Zeitalters," p. 412 : " The Drama of the Church-refor
mation is by no means finished."

326 JOHN GOTTLIEB FICHTE.
contagious disease. She had incuned the disease through the
Christian faithfulness with which this excellent woman,
principaUy urged to it by her husband, tended the sick
soldiers in the lazaretto. With the greatest sacrifice and
care Fichte now devoted hiraself to tend and nurse her. One
evening he had already bid the unconscious sick wife fareweU
in order to lecture at the univ^ersity, had lectured two hours
in succession on the raost abstract subjects with the greatest
self-control, and had returned home with the thought that
perhaps he would find her dead, just as a favourable crisis
appeared and the physicians began to hope for the first time.
The wife was saved, but it cost the life of the husband. The
next day Fichte felt quite unwell, and soon the true nature
of the disease becarae evident. He stiU received the account
of Bliicher's crossing the Rhine, and the rapid advance of the
aUies into France. This inspired his spirit once raore with
bold hopes, and the joy occasioned by the news so raingled
with his feverish fancies, that he imagined himself taking part
in the battle — his whole life, what had it been but a warfare,
with the sword of the mind in his hand ? When shortly
before his death his son approached hira with raedicine, he
gave hira the significant answer, " Never raind that, I need no
raore raedicine, I feel that I have recovered." In the night
of Jan. 27th, 1 814, Fichte died, not quite fifty-two years old,
but in unimpaired strength of body and mind. His wife
survived him five years, and was buried, as she had requested,
at the feet of her husband in the cemetery before the Oranien-
burger Gate, Berlin. A high obelisk raarks the place, vrith
an inscription frora Daniel xii. 3 : " The teachers shaU shine
as the brightness of the firraaraent, and they that turn raany
to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever." How far
these words of the prophet are applicable to Fichte as a philo
sophical teacher, of course depends on the judgraent formed
of the raoral and religious contents of his systera. This had,
as we have seen, several grades ; first, it only appeared as a
consistent continuation of Kant ; then it raanifested itself as
perfected IdeaUsra, disraal and ghostly, and rendered more
gloomy by the suspicion of atheism ; finally, however, the
setting star turned itself vrith greater brilliance towards
Christianity, and although not in the form of a fuU, unre-

JOHN GOTTLIEB FICHTE. 327
served evangelical confession, as had been the case with some
other Christian philosophers, stUl in a raode of philosophical
thinking belonging to the Christian sphere. And this Chris
tian knowledge might becorae to sorae the raeans of passing
over to a sirapler faith, to that righteousness of which the pro
phet in the above passage refers. If, however, as we have
already observed, Fichte is to be estiraated, not raerely as a
phUosophical author and as a raan of the school, but also as a
man of coramon life, then this cheering trait may yet be
mentioned from his life in the home-circle, that in the house
of the distinguished philosopher each day, without exception,
was closed with proper and soleran evening devotions, in
which the domestics were also accustoraed to take a part.
After several verses had been sung frora a choral-book, ac-'
companied vrith the clavichord, the father of the family would
make sorae reraarks on sorae passage of the New Testament,
most frequently on his favourite gospel of John. In these
discourses he was less concerned about moral applications and
rules of life than about freeing the raind frora the distraction
and vanity of the coraraon affairs of life, and elevating the
spirit to the eternal. That this produced beneficial effects on
the members of the family and also on those less closely re
lated the son of Fichte testifies to from his own experience ;
to whora we are also indebted for raost of the knowledge of
the life of his father.

XXI.
RICHTER, GOETHE, AND NOVALIS.
TENDENCIES ON POLITE LITERATURE CORRESPONDING TO THOSE
OF SCHELLING AND JACOBI  JEAN PAUL RICHTER  GOETHE'S
CONNECTION WITH SCHELLING'S SYSTEM  COMPARISON BE
TWEEN SCHILLER AND GOETHE IN REFERENCE TO THEIR
EELATION TO CHRISTIANITY  GOETHE's INFLUENCE  HIS
POSITION IN REFERENCE TO PROTESTANTISM  NOVALIS.
As the Kantian philosophy found its poetical expression in
Schiller, we find that the philosophy of ScheUing has its

328 RICHTER, GOETHE, AND NOVALIS.
representatives in raodern literature, and these are the more
numerous, because this philosophy is in its nature half poetry,
and rises on the wings of fancy above the sphere of the com
raon understanding. The Kantian philosophy was thoroughly
prosaic, and Schiller's poetry had only planted itself by its
side as its extemal corapleraent. From the very beginning it
entered into the most intimate relation with poetry. It
awakened the slumbering poetical syrapathy in many youth
ful hearts ; it became the source of a new school of poets, who
drew from it their power and nourishment. That poetical
view of the world, which raust lie at the basis of aU action, if
a true work of art is to be produced, was introduced by this
phUosophy ; by it art has been entirely freed frora the stiff
rules to which the imitation of foreign productions had sub
jected it, and Goethe stands before us raost prorainently as the
master of a new school of poetry.
Before, however, we follow the connection of Schelling's
phUosophy with Goethe on the one hand, and with the nove
lists on the other, we must ask the question, whether the
philosophy of Jacobi, which we have found to be the antipode
of Schelling's, has no poetical side.. We can answer this
question in the affirmative.
Jean Paul Richter was' not only personaUy acquainted with
the phUosopher Jacobi and with Herder, but also publicly
professed to accept the Christianity represented by these men,
which, in distinction frora all mystic obscurity and puritanic
severity, he called a cheerful Christianity. In the " Green
land Processes" he gives the comraon orthodoxy a strong dose
of satire. But he advocated an enlightenment better than
that commonly advocated, he wanted a pious enlightenment
and an enlightened piety, and both of these he finds in Jacobi.
He agrees with his positive as well as negative principles, with
what he affirms as well as vrith what he denies. With Jacobi
he clings to the faith in a personal God and iraraortality, and
expressed his hopes in the latter in a peculiar raanner in his
" Campanerthal ;" but with hira he also rejects what he calls
the " narrowness of theological views and expectations," which
attempt to confine the inner life within a Jewish-Christian
systera of doctrine. Jean Paul also wants a revelation, but
not one historically finished, closed for ever, but a continued

RICHTER, GOETHE, AND NOVALIS. 329
revelation of God to our hearts. He, as well as Jacobi, always -T
speaks with the deepest reverence of Christ, " the purest of
the mighty, the raightiest of the pure, who, with His pierced
hands, lifted a world ;" but he can as little adopt the Church
riew of Christ as the philosopher of Perapelfort. He, too,
would rather raise hiraself to God with Christ than to come
to Him through Christ. The orthodox doctrine of redemption
is repulsive to him, but Herder's notion of the Son of Man,
m which the purely huraan is represented in its highest trans
formation, has the most attraction for him.
Jean Paul never scoffed at religion in his writings, his
feeUngs shrank back frora such low service ; but he has occa
sionaUy given a huraorous turn to religious definitions, in
order to bring prominently before the raind the fact that in
rehgion all definitions are incoraplete. His faith, as he hira
self says, does not rest on separate proofs, as if on feet, which
have but to be broken to overthrow it ; but it is rooted with
a thousand invisible fibres in the deep soil of feeling.
Therefore, he thinks, a inan " raay be refuted till brought to
silence, without convincing hira ; feeling survives judgraent,
just as pain survives the grounds of corafort."
WhUst he regarded orthodox dogmatics irreconcilable with
modern learning, he on the other hand laraented, like Jacobi,
the decay of religion, saw in it indications of sad oraens for
the future, and discerned no other means of avoiding them
than by thorough cultivation. He does not think that the
civil or ecclesiastical power, the stafe or the church, are
called to reinstate religion again, but that this is the task of
science and poetry. " The Muses only can become the persuaders
of the great," and he regards the writings of the ancients " an
eternal Bible." Jean Paul never penetrated to the heart of
Christianity, without which no one can comprehend it fuUy ;
but he appropriated its blessings with his feelings, and gave
man's inner life a truer place than many others. If Chris
tianity had not existed his poetry would have been as impos
sible as the phUosophy of Jacobi.
Though we have already hinted that Goethe sustained a
similar relation to Schelling that SchiUer did to Kant, Goethe
was by no means dependent on Schelling's system, as Schiller
was, for a tirae, on that of Kant. Goethe was too great, too

330 RICHTER, GOETHE, AND NOVALIS.
independent, too original, ever to have becorae the raere echo
of a systera. He seemed at first inclined to agree with the
philosophy of Jacobi ; and the latter hoped to form a perraa
nent friendship with him, but these friendly relations were
severed. Jacobi dedicated his " Woldemar" to Goethe, with
the deepest and warmest assurances of friendship, while the
latter had already grown cold ; and the raost essential charac
teristic of Jacobi, the conteraplation of his raind and heart,
was offensive to Goethe. It appeared to hira that it was a
kind of sickness to atterapt to watch the operations of one's
own mind ; he praised his own wisdom in not having
reflected on his thoughts ; to think for the sake of thinking
appeared to hira a waste of raind, a result of ennui and dull
company. He disliked all that was not connected with the
green tree of Ufe, and he frequently acknowledged with plea^
sure that he had no special adaptation for philosophy. " I
have always kept myself free frora philosophy ; ray standpoint
was always that of coraraon sense. While he earnestly admo
nished persons to attain a knowledge of man, he nevertheless
warned them against knowledge of self He thought tbe
sentence "know thyself" contained a contradiction in itself:
he that looks into his heart, he thought, " is in as bad a
condition as he who watches his own brain." He had, how
ever, not only an aversion to philosophy founded on a know
ledge of self, as advocated by Jacobi ; but also to that which
makes the world the object of its conteraplation instead of
seff. " He detested all who raade a world frora their own
errors, and wilfully vexed theraselves with speculation. But
though Goethe frora his good taste sought to avoid the quaint,
unnatural form which reminded one of the old scholasticism,
StiU his view of life was most intimately connected with that
manifested in Schelling's systera. He hiraself acknowledges
that he belongs to the school of " identity," and was born to
it. He too looked upon life in its various forras as one,
raind and sense, God and nature, the internal and the external,
forra and substance were one and the same to hira. His
studies of nature and his raoral view of the world,' were
governed by this idea.
" Was waer ein Gott, der nur von aussen stiesse,
Im Kreis das All am Finger laufen liesse,

EICHTER, GOETHE, AND NOVALIS. 331
Ihm ziemt's die Welt im Innern zu bewegen,
Natur in sich, sich in Natur zu hegen,
So dass was in ihm lebt und weht und ist,
Nie seine Kraft, nie seinen Geist vermisst.'
He considers the moral world as an active play of the most
diverse powers, that all struggle with sin is but necessary
development. Schiller seeks to attain an exalted ideal of
rirtue, when he designates only that " which never happened
anywhere," as able to satisfy the human mind for ever, when
he longs for other circumstances than those which surround
him, soraetiraes vrishing himself back in the world of the
Greeks, sometimes forward to a better period in the future.
Goethe feels very well satisfled with the present, the agreeable
of which he can speak and write so pleasantly, is natural to
him ; he is disturbed by nothing, neither by political nor
rehgious life, nor the contest of different schools, he is raised
above all contests, enjoying the calm peace of the gods; hence
that much praised objectivity, that clearness and finish, that
inner harmony and external corapleteness of his works, which
aU bear the stamp of the highest naturalness, not an iraitated,
affected naturalness, but one new-created, a nature born from
the spirit ; so that if worship of genius were admissible, one
might be terapted to worship in Goethe the creative principle
personifled. The present world flnds an advocate in Goethe.
"We wUl not console each other with the hope of eternal Ufe,"
he wrote to the Countess Juliana von Stolberg in 1775, "we
must be happy yet in this Ufe !"^
WhUe previous ages since the reforraation had placed the
consciousness of God and the view of another world above
aU other considerations, and had connected all that was under
taken in this world with heaven ; while this predominance of
dirine conteraplation was carried to that extent, that this
world was regarded as a vale of tears, and raore taste was
manifested for abstract controversies than for that which
' What were a God who would only impel from without, who would let the
universe revolve at the end of His finger ; it becomes Him to move the world
from within, to cherish nature in Himself, Himself in nature, so that whatever
lives and moves and has its being in Him, may never fail to have His power and
spirit. 2 The very opposite is however expressed in various places.

332 RICHTER, GOETHE, AND NOVALIS.
could make a worthy existence on earth possible ; the modern
tiraes are distinguished for a raode of conteraplation, the very
opposite of this in which the consciousness of the world is the
prevaiUng one, and all the energies are exerted to make this
Ufe so beautiful and comfortable that even heaven is forgotten.
And we know of no poet who expresses this disposition more
fuUy than Goethe. FuU of this worldly feeUng he sings :
" Wirkllch ist es allerliebst
Auf der lieben Erde,
Darura schwer' ich feierlich
Und ohn' alle Faehrde,
Dass ich mich nicht freventlich
Wegbegeben werde."'
This and similar carelessly written poems of Goethe would
be misunderstood if regarded as the pure expression of gross
and coraraon worldliness, bent only on sensuality. Every one
who knows what pleasantry is, will discover the meaning
hidden in such verses. Tbey express the triumph of genius
over aU gloom and difficulty, the easy and- free elevation of
an unfettered raind above the oppression and narrow liraits
of the external world, and with all their apparent triviality,
they contain soraething highly poetical. Goethe's poetical
talent is raanifested especially in this, that he can find the whole
and the general in the particular and the individual, the
raost iraportant in that which is apparently raost insignificant,
and can change all that he touches with his raagic wand, into
a poetical being. There is raore true poetry in perceiving
in the raotion of a wave, in the flight of a bird, an emblem
of the eternal, a wonderful reference of natural life to our
inteUectual, than ff Jacob's ladder raust flrst be raised, to
chmb from star to star, to obtain a divine idea. In this
respect SchUler differs from Goethe. The fonner strives, pant
ing and breathless, to pursue the heavenly goddess, who
eternaUy evades hira, while the latter moves naturaUy, and
every breath is a coraplete poem. But with aU its high
poetical worth, Goethe's view of the world has something de
lusive in it, if one attempts to raake it the basis^of morals
' It is really most lovely on this lovely earth, hence I swear solemnly and ivith
out any deception, that I shall not wantonly depart from it. ,

EICHTER, GOETHE, AND NOVALIS. 333
and religion, if one seeks the real abiding reconcUiation of
heaven and earth in the " worldly gospel of poetry," and
hopes with Goethe " that inner serenity and external corafort
will free us frora the troubles of this world." This view of
the world may have something very coraforting to cheerful
natures, such as Goethe's was, but the unhappy, as well as
those who feel keenly the unhappiness and raisery of others,
cannot be satisfied by it. The divine marble image of poetry
may give us infinite delight while viewing it frora an artistic
staiid-point, but how its insupportable coldness repels us when
we attempt to embrace it, thinking that a sympathizing heart
beats in its bosom !
No one can confirra us better in this opinion than Goethe
himself, when he sings : —
Ein Gott hat
Jedem seine Bahn
Vorgezeichnet, Die der Glueckliche
Easch zum freudigen.
Ziele rennt ;
Wem aber Unglueck
Das Herz zusammenzog,
Er straeubt vergebens
Sich gegen die Schranken
Des ehemen Fadens,
Den die doch bittere Scheere
Nur einmal loest.
Leicht ist's folgen den Wagen,
Den Fortuna fuehrt,
Wie der gemaechliche Trost
Auf gebesserten Wegen
Hinter des Fuersten Einzug.
Aber wer heilet die Schmerzen
Dess, dem Balsam zu Gift-ward ?
Der sich Menschenhass
Aus der Fuelle der Liebe trank ?
Erst verachtet, nun ein veraechter,
Zehrt er heimleich auf
Seinen eignen Werth
In ungenuegender Selbstsncht.'
' A God has marked out a course for every one, over which the fortunate man
ipeedily runs to a joyful goal; but he, whose heart has been oppressed by mis-

334 EICHTER, GOETHE, AND NOVALIS.
We raust leave it to others to draw a raore extended
parallel between Schiller and Goethe frora a political point of
view.^ But a comparison between the two heroes of German
literature, so far as their relation to Christianity is concerned,
is necessary. In this matter the opinions are very different.
While there are sorae wdio reject both poets as unchristian
without any further investigation, it is reraarkable that Goethe
has generally found raore favour than Schiller in the eyes of
those whose views of Christianity are strict, while the reverse
has seldora been the case. It depends on what is raade the
raeasure of the Christian in man, whether knowledge, the vrill,
or the disposition. Goethe undoubtedly stands higher than
Schiller in Christian knowledge, as he in general displays a
raind of more enlarged views and less enveloped in the pre
judices of a system. He could, for instance, judge the
Scriptural history and Christian dograas far more impartiaUy
than Schiller who was often passionately excited. How
could it be otherwise than that the man in whose hands all
received a living form, should also have received the phe
nomenon of Christianity of world-wide importance into this
forming process, and should have worked it into his great
picture of the world ? What a richness of Christian riews
we find in "Faust !" what a taste for the finest shadings of
Christian life in the " Confessions of a beautiful soul." Even
the Moravian view of Christianity, he considers proper in its
place, as his intercourse with the ingenious Miss von Kletten-
berg proves. What sound just judgraents of the high value
of the Bible and its educational iraportance we find in his
Autobiography, and to sorae extent also in the notes to his
Chroraatics, and above all in his conversations with Ecker-
raann ! To give but one example, can anything stronger be
fortune, struggles in vain against the limits of the brazen thread, which the
bitter scissors cut but once.
It is easy to follow the waggon driven by Fortuna, just as pleasure and com
fort easily follow, on improved roads, the entrance of the prince.
But who heals the wounds of him to whom balsam became poison? who
drank misantbrophy from the fulness of love ? First despised now a despiser,
he secretly feeds on his own dignity in unsatisfying selfishness.
I It is well known that they were at first repelled by each other, while after
wards they were bound together by the warmest friendship. Goethe appears
noble in his relation to Schiller. Schiller had to be handled by him as an egg
without a shell.

RICHTER, GOETHE, AND NOVALIS. 335
said to the despisers of the Bible, than that which is said by
Goethe : — " The farther the ages advance in cultivation, the
more can the Bible be used, partly as the foundation, partly as
the means of education, not of course by superficial, but by
really wise men." There are also other sirailar expressions.
One thing is certain, that raodern Christian apologists could
draw many raore proofs from Goethe's writings than from
Schiller's, through which heresy appears alraost everywhere.
In the practical sphere Goethe showed hiraself practical, too,
whenever an insight into existing relations carae under con
sideration ; while Schiller was not at all practical. While
SchiUer, for instance, dreamed of iraproving the world by
means of the theatre, and recoramended the stage as a moral
institution, a second church, as it were ; so that many minis
ters of SchUler's age, following these hints, actually introduced
poetical phrases and theatrical declaraation from the stage into
the pulpit ; Goethe censured this raischief in a raost raasterly
manner in his Faust. As Wagner says to Faust,^ " I have
often heard say, a player raight instruct a priest." Faust
rephes, "Yes, when the priest is a player, as raay Ukely
enough corae to pass occasionaUy ;" and then continues, " If
you do not feel it, you will not get it by hunting for it, — if
it does not corae frora the soul, and subdue the hearts of aU
hearers with original delight, sit at it for ever — glue together,
cook up a hash frora the feast of others, and blow the paltry
flames out of your own little heap of ashes. You raay gain
the admiration of children and apes, if you have a taste for
it; but you will never touch the hearts of others if it does
not flow fresh frora your own."
Wagner then says, " But it is elocution that raakes the
orator's success. I feel well that I ara stiU behind hand."
Faust replies, " Try what can be got by honest raeans.
Be no tinkling fool ! Reason and good sense express thera
selves with little art. And when you are seriously intent on
saying soraething, is it necessary to hunt for words ? Your
speeches, I say, which are so highly polished, in which ye
crisp the shreds of huraanity, are unrefreshing as the mist-
wind which whistles through the withered leaves of autumn."
In these few words Goethe has compressed more wisdom
' Hayward's Translation.

336 EICHTER, GOETHE, AND NOVALIS.
than can be found in raany detailed theories of pulpit elo
quence. In a like manner he displays his tact in things re
ferring to divine worship. He felt that of aU his numerous
poems not one was flt to stand in a Lutheran hyran-book.
All raingling of the sacred and profane was averse to his good
taste. "Music," he ,says in W. Meister's " Wanderjahren,"
which mixes the sacred and profane character, "is wicked, and
that which expresses weak, pitiful, raiserable eraotions is in
sipid ; for it is not soleran enough to be sacred, and it lacks
the chief characteristic of the opposite cheerfulness." How
tender and beautiful in harraony with tbe Christian view of
Ufe is the reraark in the " Wahlverwandschaften," that the
celebration of a wedding should always be soleran, and that
therefore stillness is rauch raore appropriate for such an occa
sion than noisy ostentation.^ We therefore repeat it, that as
far as an insight into Christian raatters is concerned, we
everywhere flnd raental views in Goethe, such as we look for
in vain in so definite a forra in Schiller. But if insight is not
the only raeasure of the Christian character, but rather the
agreeraent and inclination of the heart, we could alraost be
lieve — without doing Goethe any injustice — that Schiller at
tiraes experienced deeper Christian eraotions than Goethe.
You reraeraber those raoming reflections of Schiller, that
wrestling for truth, for certainty in religious raatters. We
do not find such struggles in Goethe's life. It is true he
also doubted, when a boy, many things in the Bible, and
desired an explanation of them frora his reUgious instructor ;
but, as he hiraself says, he was more intent on advancing his
doubts than on their solution, and tbe religious instructor
knew no other way to reUeve hiraself of the difficulty of
answering the proposed questions than by exclairaing repeat
edly, while shaking with laughter : " The foolish fellow ! the
foolish boy !" Later in his youth, he experienced many inner
coraraotions, and it cost hira a powerful struggle, before he
could place hiraself in that quiet, ruling relation to the world,
which he enjoyed in after Ufe ; but the struggle was not
of a religious character, it vvas that of genius violently press
ing onward against the estabUshed relations of the natural
' SchiUer, on the other hand, speaks in a very frivolous manner of his own
wedding ; he calls it " a very merry scene."

EICHTER, GOETHE, AND NOVALIIS. 337
and raoral world, which raay be corapared to the Titan- storm,
gaining heaven by its own divine power. But after the
"nocturnal storm," Goethe soon reached the shore again.
Neither Schiller's nor Goethe's life is free frora iraraoralities ;
but Goethe did not mind this so rauch, and Schiller's moral
struggles were undoubtedly more eamest than those of Goethe.
Goethe did not want to be a saint, nor a wicked ungodly
man. According to his own words, he did not regard piety
as the object of Ufe, but rather as a raeans for attaining the
highest cultivation through the purest peace of raind. It
was Goethe's first principle to be teraperate in all things, in
art as well as in raorality and religion. Thus the position
may be explained which he took against boundless enlighten
ment, " Aufklaerung," as well as against what appeared to
him to be boundless piety, reUgious extravagance. It is sig
nificant, that in his youth Goethe was the friend of Stelling
and Lavater, and advocated their cause against the " Auf-
klaerer." No one has derided the insipidity of the so-called
"Aufklaerer" raore than Goethe. But it was rather the
duUness of these raen that Goethe attacked than their ungod-
hness, and he did not like to enter into a deep discussion of
religious subjects. In the corapany of his pious friends he
was always sprightly and full of life, and when Lavater and
Basedow had quarreUed, till quite weary, about theological
matters, Goethe would sing in his own peculiar raanner, — ¦
" Prophets right, and prophets left,
The worldling in the middle."
Nothing could better indicate the position he occupied araong
the theological disputants than these lines. We raust not,
therefore, be surprised that the sarae Goethe wbo attacked
the "Aufklaerer" also opposed Lavater's Christianity; for in
the course of tirae the difference between hira and Lavater in
reference to religion, and the irapossibility of uniting their
different standpoints, became more and raore evident. "There
are many recipes at ray father's apothecary," Goethe writes
to Lavater in 1782, "ray plaster vriU not stick to you, nor
your's to rae ;" and three years previous to this he had pro
posed to his friend that " they would no longer torment each
other about thefr individual reUgions." In the sarae letter
Y

338 RICHTER, GOETHE, AND NOVALIS.
he professes to believe in the truth of the five senses, and in
another place pities Lavater on account of his eternal strug
gling and wrestling. " I have pitied your thirst for Christ,"
he says, " you are in a worse condition than we heathen are,
for in tiraes of trouble our gods appear to us."
In another letter he says openly that he is not indeed an
infidel, nor an antichristian, but that he is certainly not a
Christian, and thus he has denoted his position in reference
to Christianity better than we can.'' He regarded the fana
tical attacks of Voltaire foolish, because his insight into
history was deeper than that of Voltaire, as well as for other
reasons ; but he regarded that view contracted which con
fined itseff exclusively to Christianity, and expected to find
all in it. He had no objection to the Christian character in
others who appeared adapted to it, even regarded it with
interest, so long as it was raerely an object of conteraplation
to him, just as a portrait painter studies the original which
he desires to represent on canvass ; but he desired to occupy
only the position of an observer. Already, when he wrote
Werther, he put the following words in his mouth : " I
honour religion. I feel that it is refreshraent to raany weary
and hungry souls. But can it, must it be this to aU ? When
you look on the world, you find that there are thousands to
whom it was not all, and thousands to whora it will not be
.... and raust it be this then to rae ? Does not the Son
of God say that they shall be around Hira, whom the Father
has given Him? How, then, if I have not been given to
Hira ? How if the Father has retained me for Himself, as
iny heart tells me?" To Lavater he writes: "It elevates
the soul, and occasions the most beautiful reflections, to see
you seize the splendid, sparkling goblet with the greatest
ardour, fill it brimful with your red, foaming beverage, and
then quaff with joy the frothing draught. I do not envy
you this good fortune of enjoying all in one individual ; and
since it is impossible for one individual to satisfy you per-
' 111 1813 Goethe used the following expression to Fr. Jacobi: As poet and
artist I am a polytheist, pantheist as a natural philosopher, and the one
as decidedly as the other. And if I need a God for myself as a moral being, I
ara also provided for. The heavenly and divine things form so large a realm,
that it requires the organs of all beings to perceive it.

EICHTEE, GOETHE, AND NOVALIS. 339
fectly, it is fine that a picture of antiquity has corae down to
us, in which you can embody aU things, in which you can
minor and worship yourself But I must consider it wrong
and robbery in you to pluck aU the beautiful feathers of the
various birds under heaven, as though they were usurped,
and to adorn your bird of paradise exclusively vrith them ;
this must necessarily displease and grieve us who yield our
selves as disciples to the wisdora revealed through raan to
man, and as sons of God worship Hira in ourselves as well as
in aU His children." With these words Goethe expressed
the sarae idea which Strauss afterwards expressed thus, that
nature does not generally give all its fulness to one indi
ridual. He, therefore, most likely regarded Christ as a wel- '
come picture of antiquity, with which every one might con
nect his own ideal of man, in which all might see the better
part of their own nature ; but he did not regard Hira as the
only being in whora the Spirit dwells without raeasure.^ In this
point also we, therefore, find that Goethe's views and modem
speculative philosophy meet, for we have learned that the ,
same riews were held by Fichte and Schelling.
Goethe's Ufe has been divided into different periods, youth,
manhood, and old age, and the first and last have been re
garded as those in which the poet's heart was raore open to
religious irapressions than in the raiddle period, and hence we
must not be surprised to meet many contradictions in Goethe's
writings ; however, I believe that even in each period enough i
will be found that is contradictory. He himself says, " The
world is full of contradictions, should not a book then contra
dict itself?" We will not atterapt to point out or to reconcile
these contradictions ; the thing that interests us raost is the
impression that Goethe raade on his age. It is a reraarkable i
fact that, though Goethe was older than Schiller, stiU his j
dominion over the minds of raen was later, and that the reign '
' "You regard the Gospel as the most divine truth," Goethe says in one of '.
his letters. " A voice from heaven would not convince me that water burns
and that fire quenches, that a woman gives birth without knowing man, and
that a dead man rises from the grave. I rather regard this as blasphemy against
the great God%nd His revelation in nature. . . . You can find nothing raore
beautiful than the Gospe*; I find a thousand pages of ancient and modem times
written by men favoured of God, just as beautiful, and as useful, and indispen
sable to man."

340 RICHTER, GOETHE, AND NOVALIS.
of Goethe in the realra of raind had first to be preceded by
that of Schiller, as the critical philosophy preceded ScheUing's
" Naturphilosophie," as rationalisra preceded pantheism. By
observing tbe course of Gerraan literature it raay easily be
seen that the enthusiasra for SchUler, which prevailed thirty
or forty years ago in youthful rainds, and received a new im
pulse from Theodore Koerner, gradually moderated, and its
place was taken by Goethe's more iraposing, life-like raode of
thinking. This is the course which the so-called " worship
of genius " has taken, first exaggeration, then relaxation, and
finally the great dissatisfaction with the world of which every
boy on the street can sing now. As every partial veneration
of huraan greatness bears the seed of self-destruction in it, un
less regulated and sustained by the worship of the only true
God, so it was in this case. A longing for an iraagined ideal,
or the conceit of having found what has not yet been attained,
are both equally dangerous ; but one raust be careful lest the
last deception be greater than the first. Where there is long
ing and struggling, there is at least always a starting-point
for the raessage of salvation, and a Saul, zealous for an ideal,
may becorae a Paul. But if one says, " I ara rich and have
need of nothing," that spiritual condition of lukewarmness
foUows, of which it is said, " I would thou wert cold or hot."
This state of lukewarmness in religious raatters, this indiffer
ence about salvation, of which raany boast, has been spread
araong a large class of raen, through Goethe's view of the
world, not that Goethe is to blarae for this, but his bUnd
adrairers. The thoughtful raan, who has an interest for God
and heavenly things awakened in his childhood, raust find
raany things in Goethe's works well adapted to develop and
coraplete tlie inner raan, raany pearls well fitted to adorn the
Christian, provided he possesses a high degree of cultivation.
But if one has no definite aira in life, he will scarcely get one
frora Goethe. Goethe bears the sarae relation to the indivi
dual raan as nature or a work of art. Both raay be used for
the glory of God, or may lead to idolatry. In reference to
morality nature and art are silent, and so is Goethe. His
raotto is, " Do what is right in your own affairs. All else
vrill take care of itseff." But it does not take care of itseff.
Just as Goethe did not want to enter his own soul, so, too.

RICHTER, GOETHE, AND NOVALIS. 341
he does not lead man to study hiraself; he teaches hira how
to get clear views of worldly raatters, and in this respect all
can learn of hira ; but he does not touch the conscience, he 1
does not want to touch it, he lets every raan alone. While
the preceding period exalted raorality to a false position, so
that it even wanted to raake art a servant of raoraUty, Goethe
and modern writers have treated art as a power independent
of moral and. political designs. But as it is very easy to pass
from one error to another, men began to view the moral only
with artistic eyes, and to value only its capacity for draraatic
effect. The love of quiet, raodest virtue, of what was con
temptuously terraed "coramon morality," continuaUy dimin
ished, and even the integrity, chastity, and honesty of siraple
Christians were lightly esteeraed ; while it was claimed that
genius should not be judged by conimon rules of morality.
It is of course becoming in judging of great raen to be raodest,
and to confess that though we raay be free frora many o?
their faults, we are also behind them in the noblest virtues,
and that frequently it is only our raediocrity which keeps us
on the accustoraed path of duty, while they are easily drawn
aside by the raighty pressure of their genius ; we should con
sider that perhaps one great thought and one great deed of
such a man outweighs a thousand of our good-natured cora
mon thoughts and uniraportant perforraances of duty ; and it
becomes us to ask whether the raeasure we apply is the right
one, whether we understand the raen whora we judge and the
circumstances that surround them. This mistrust of our
knowledge, this aversion to a censuring spirit is worthy
of honour, and far removed from the idolatrous worship of
genius. Christianity itself requires this fairness. But to say
that great minds are not at aU subject to the general moral
law, that they are favourites of the gods, that they carry the
standard by which they are to be judged entirely in them
selves ; in a word, that they are not subject to the divine law,
— this is idoUzing raen, and I caU special attention to the :
fact, Ihat this passion for idolizing men is to be found ivhere
pantheism lias destroyed the faith in a living personal God. ;
If man wants to worship and adore, he cannot be satisfied ,
with an empty general notion; he wiU and must worship
something personal, and if he has lost sight of the personality -

342 EICHTER, GOETHE, AND NOVALIS.
of the Creator, he will transfer the worship to the creature.
One has lived among men in whom the fulness of the God
head dwelt, and of Hira it is said, that He was raade subject
to the law, obeyed it, and fulfilled all righteousness, and there
fore God has exalted Hira, and given Hira a name above all
other names, that only through Hira the highest naraes can
have any place in the kingdora of God. The greatness of a
name is not lost by this means, it continues to shine serenely
as a star in the great constellation, undimmed as an emerald
in the throne of God. Let us keep this in mind, too, in re
ference to Goethe. The raost beautiful, the noblest of Goethe
has already been received into this connection, and when the
apostle says, "All is yours," Christianity, fully conscious of
tbis right, has raade use of Goethe, and traly those thought
fully reverencing hira, have acted raore like the great poet
than his idolatrous admirers. How high the master stood
above the host of idolizing disciples, we may learn from one
of his later conversations with Eckerraann.^ Here Goethe
says, " All productiveness of the highest kind, every discovery,
every great thought producing fruit, is in no man's power,
and is elevated above aU temporal raight. These raan is to
regard as unexpected gifts frora above, as pure children of
God, which he is to receive and honour vrith joyful gratitude."
Here and there we raeet with such expressions in the Ufe of
this extraordinary man, and an unexpected fiarae of deepest
religious feeling often bursts frora his cold, apparently raarble
breast, and though we should not like to say with a certain
Christian philosopher, that Goethe proclairaed the Gospel in
his own language, still he was nearer the belief of the Gospel,
the prevalence of an unraerited divine grace, than raany with
their forraal Christianity. Though we can apply no moral
standard to Goethe different frora that applied to other raen,
stiU we gladly acknowledge that the way through which God
leads such raen is often hid from our eyes. The intimation
' In a former conversation he speaks unfavourably of the critique as used
now, and also speaks of immortality. Though he speaks decidedly against those
who only speculate idly about a future world (in a sentimental manner which
was customary at the time of Tiedge's Urania), still he says as decidedly that
all are dead for tbis life, who hope for no other. He also says that the Chris
tian religion is a great power, highly elevated above all philosophy, and needing
no support from it.

RICHTER, GOETHE, AND NOVALIS. 343
in this respect given by Goethe to Lavater is reraarkable :
" My God to whom I have been true, has secretly blessed me,
for my condition is entirely hid frora men ; they see and hear
nothing of it, but whatever can be revealed of it, I will joy
fully communicate to you."
We vrill here give a quotation from his last conversations
vrith Eckermann : " Let spfritual iraproveraent continually in
crease, let natural science ever gi'ow in extent and depth,
and let the huraan raind be expanded as much as it please :
it will never transcend the height and morality of Christianity,
as it glows and shines in the Gospel."
Goethe's relation to Christianity is a subject which could
be treated much more extensively than we have done in the
few preceding remarks. So much raay be said for and against
Goethe; owing to his twofold nature, his deep knowledge, and
his hght, often frivolous manners, the raatter raay be contera
plated frora so many different points of view, that at one tirae
we are as rauch surprised at the agreeraent of the essential
riews of Goethe with those of Christianity, as at another we
must feel ourselves suddenly repulsed by the coldness and
frivolity with which he treats the raost sacred subjects. It
could not be our object to forra a complete judgment of Goethe,
as we have not done this with Schiller, Pestalozzi, Fichte,
Schelling, and others. It was our design raerely to speak of
what Goethe was for his age, how his age understood and
received hira, and how the Goethean culture influenced the
former, and raore especiaUy our own age. It is certain that
next to the raodern speculative philosophy, which appeared
at the close of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nine
teenth century, it is Goethe who swayed and stUl sways the
educated rainds, who was the organ of the spirit of the age.
We have not, however, accomplished our object until we
have raore closely exarained Goethe's position in reference to
Protestantism. Goethe was not only a refiirmatory spirit, he
was, to use his own language in his own sense, a productive
spirit ; he created a new period, especiaUy in art ; and though
' this at first appears to have no connection with the reforma
tion of the Church, still we cannot regard it as a mere acci
dent, that the very men who were caUed to give a new im
pulse to the literature of the eighteenth and nineteenth cen-

344 RICHTER, GOETHE, AND NOVALIS.
turies, Lessing, Klopstock, Herder, Goethe, all proceeded from
the Protestant Church, as well as Leibnitz, Wolf Kant, Fichte,
Schelling, and Hegel in the department of philosophy. All
branches of the sarae trunk ! Goethe hiraself must have
recognized this connection, as appears frora his opinion of,
Luther. In his conversations with Eckerraann, Goethe says :
" Luther was a spirit of a very iraportant kind ; he has
already exerted an infiuence for raany days, and the
nuraber of days which raust pass before he will cease to be
productive cannot be calculated." In this respect Goethe's
raodesty is really great and affecting in coraparison to the
dwarfish race of young reforraers, who think the}'^ are already
far above Luther. Goethe hiraself has cast the horoscope of
such persons when, in 1816, he writes to Zelter : "The in
credible conceit into which young raen now grow, will in few
years raanifest itself in the greatest nonsense." And this has
really been verified.^
In ray opinion Goethe raay be placed with Luther in one
respect, that they both introduced a new period into the his
tory of the Gerraan language. What Luther became to the
Church by his pithy scriptural and ecclesiastical language,
Goethe has become to the world and society by his plastic
representation and clear conversational language. Both may
boldly be placed side by side as unsurpassed classic raodels ;
of course, each in his own sphere. Otherwise, as far as the
course and tendency of life is concerned, Luther and Goethe
have few points of similarity, and the miner's son and Augus
tine monk forms a wonderful contrast to the son of the
Frankfort senator, who sits in the lap of fortune, and deve
lopes, as if spontaneously, in the raidst of cheerful pictures of
art- — just as the tirae of Wittenberg forras a contrast to that
of Weimar ! We raight rauch sooner speak of Schiller,
Herder, Fichte, and sirailar minds, if the object were to men
tion those who, like Luther, fought their way through a

' Goethe speaks in quite a Protestant manner of so-called "Liberalism."
" The truly liberal man attempts to accomplish as much good as possible with
the means within his reach ; but he is careful not to attempt to destroy the im
perfections, frequently unavoidalile, with fire and sword. He is careful to
remove open crimes gradually by wise proceedings, without at the same time
destroying just as much good by a forcible mode of action."

RICHTER, GOETHE, AND NOVALIS. 345
youth of difficulties, and for one idea staked their lives, and
who on the proper occasion would also have defied a world
of devUs in order to spread truth and to promote the right.
Goethe has been blamed for taking no active part in the
political struggle of Germany against its oppressors. In this
respect he has been compared with the much praised and
highly esteemed Erasnius, with his reserve, his wit, his fine
cora-t-manners and court-favour. Still it appears to us that
Goethe is lowered too much by this comparison. Each was,
indeed, the most distinguished literary man of his age ; but
in Goethe there is evidently soraething fresher, raore solid,
more healthy. There is one point especially in Goethe's life,
in which the inheritance from Luther was powerfully active
in him, the time in which he wrote " Goetz von Berlichingen,"
in which even the strength of the age is painted in bold out
hne. " To risk life for the general good," it is said in Goetz,
" this were a life indeed 1" Goethe did not think so after
wards. But in his raore advanced age he also raanifested a
deep insight into the nature of Protestantisra, into its great
historical significance. It cannot appear strange to any one
that, with his broad coraprehension, he also understood the
historical position of Catholicisra, that, as artist and poet, he
also knew how to use the CathoUc forras, and even mani
fested a preference for the nuraber seven in the sacraraents,
because he thought the Protestant service had too little ful
ness and consistency to keep rainds united. Yet Goethe
certainly reraained a Protestant fully and heartily, and more
than once ridiculed tbe new Catholic poets of the roraantic
school.^ He was tolerant in reference to differences of con-
' How little his taste was pleased with the Catholic worship, is evident from
his own confession, namely, from the description of AU-soul's-day. " I was
seized with a wonderful longing that the head of the church would open his
golden mouth, and, speaking with rapture of the unspeakable joy of the blessed,
that he would fill our souls with rapture. When, however, I saw him simply
Aoving to and fro before the altar, now turning to this side now to that, acting
and mumbling like a common priest, the Protestant original sin began to stir
in me, and the usual sacrifice of the mass did not at all please me." In another
place he speaks of " deformed, quaint heathenism." His opinion of Rome's
politics was not more favourable. " The Catholics are not to be trusted, they do
not agree among themselves, but always adhere to each other when a Protes
tant is to be attacked."

346 RICHTER, GOETHE, AND NOVALIS.
fessions, and would even express this tolerance in a manner
which appeared like indifference. But when he spoke seri
ously, he treated of Protestantism and its essential principles
as well and distinctly as of Christianity in general. Thus,
on tbe occasion of the approaching festival of the Refor
mation in Gerraany (1816), he pronounced tbe chief idea
of Lutheranisra well founded, since it rested on the
decided contrast between the law and the gospel, and that
therefore Lutheranism could never be united with Catholi
cisra. On another occasion he says: "Protestantisra is spread
too far to disappear again^ however much it raay be modified
by individualities.''
We can distinguish three classes of novelists, those that
really turned Catholic, those that externally reraained Protes
tants, but did not deny their Catholic sympathies, and finally,
those who, after vacillating for some tirae, gained a firra Protes
tant footing, and who then assisted to adorn Lutheranisra with
their roraances. ... As representative of the second class, I
have chosen a raan well known in the Uterary world. He is a
poet beloved and esteemed, since a deep current of Christianity
breathes in his poems, such as we have not found iu the
so-called classic poets, Schiller and Goethe ; indeed such a
depth of Christianity as we have scarcely found in Herder — I
mean Hardenberg, or, as he styles himself as author, Novahs.
The tender ardour of romance has certainly nowhere been
expressed raore beautffuUy than in the spiritual songs of
Novalis, which form a favourable contrast to the insipid
moralizing rhj^mes of the period of the lUurainati ; and
though they do not bear the starap of church hymns, stiU
they are well adapted to be sung in quiet solitude, even
vrithin the heart.
We shall find in his prose writings sorae expressions which
favour an indefinite pantheisra, and others which plainly
enough incline to Catholicisra. The raingling of a roraantic,
sensual love with the religious led to the poetic adoration o'f
the mother of the Saviour, which formed the bridge for such
minds to pass over to Catholicisra. This adoration of the
Virgin is evidently raanifested by Novalis. Several of his poems
are addressed not raerely as poetic fictions to the queen of heaven.

EICHTEE, GOETHE, AND NOVALIS. 347
but in the same manner as, in other cases, he addresses Christ
as the Lord. He asserts that the power and glory of the
heavenly virgin far surpasses all description, and that the
source of salvation is in her.
Not only the adoration of the Virgin, but the entire struc
ture of the Catholicism of the raiddle ages found rauch sym
pathy in the heart of Novalis, and he was its eloquent
defender. In a fragment of 1798 entitled, "Christendora of Europe,"
Novalis praises the " beautiful, briUiant" periods of the raiddle
ages, in which one Christianity prevaUed over our part of the
globe, when one great coraraon interest united the most
remote provinces, when one head united the political powers,
when ministers preached nothing but love to the holy charm
ing virgin of Christendom, who, furnished with divine
powers, was ready to deliver every beUever frora the raost
fearful dangers. He, however, does raore than raerely praise
the poetical part of the worship, which we raight pardon in
the poet, he approves the opposition of the head of the church
to the bold iraproveraents of huraan faculties, and dangerous
¦discoveries in the departraent of learning, as soon as these
appeared to be at the expense of a holy opinion. He finds
it quite proper that the pope should desire that raen should
not regard this earth as an insignificant planet, since with the
loss of esteera for this our earthly habitation, that for our
heavenly home is also lost ; he praises tlie wisdom of the
popes in asserabling the educated around their courts, while
they left the people in ignorance ; hence he does not consider
the restoration of science, and the Reforraation following it,
as other Protestants do, a blessing for huraanity, but a rais
fortune, at least a teraporary one. "Luther," he says, "treated
Christianity in an arbitrary manner, mistook its spirit, and
introduced another letter, another religion, the holy supremacy
of the Bible, and by this means philosophy was unfortunately
mingled with religious matters." To say, "Luther mistook the
spirit of Christianity," is at least mistaking the spirit of
Luther. And why has Luther raistaken the spirit of
Christianity ? Novalis says, " because he introduced the holy
supremacy of the Bible." Is not this again mistaking the
spirit of the Reformation, the spirit of Protestantisra ? We

348 EICHTEE, GOETHE, AND NOVALIS.
certainly do not advocate that faith in Scripture which, by
adhering so closely to the written letter of the Bible, loses
sight of the richness of the life of the Church, as it has de
veloped itself frora century to century, or which does not
perrait the spirit to appear on account of this slavish adherence
to the written letter. We have already denoted this a Protestant
deficiency ; but on this account shall the great deed of Luther
in restoring the Bible to the Christian public, and placing it
as a candlestick on the altar, instead of dumb images and
symbols, be called an error ? If again, Novalis further charges
Protestants that " Luther was elevated by some to the rank
of an Evangelist, and that his translation of the Bible was
canonized," this is absolutely false. Luther's translation was
never canonized, never declared the only valid one by a decree
of any councU ; it has raade its own way by its superior e.\-
cellence, and by its side other translations have always been
received. This fact was well known to Novalis, but he was
prejudiced against the Reforraation, because he unjustly blamed
it for the degeneracy of Protestantisra. It is thus quite
natural that the entire history of Protestantisra no longer
appeared as a great supernatural phenoraenon to a raind thus
prejudiced, and which everywhere finds an oppressed, con
tracted sickly life. " With the Reformation',' says Novahs,
" Christendom was at an end, frora that tirae it existed no
longer, for all things stood in opposition to each other in
sectarian divisions."
After this nothing could be expected but that Novahs
hiraseff should join the church which had been preserved from
the curse of the Reformation. But he did not wish to do
this, nor did he want the old Romanisra to prevail again, he
rather hoped that the crisis of unbelief with which he also
felt hiraself influenced, would bring about a transforraation in
the church, and would restore true Catholicisra, in which the
separated would again be united, and for the accomplishraent
of this he placed great hopes in romance.
The political revolutions are an indication to him that there
will be a change, and that the reconciliation of nations cannot
p;oceed frora cabinets, but raust flnd its origin in religion
" War will never cease, unless the olive branch is seized which
a scriptural power can give. Blood will flow through Europe

EICHTEE, GOETHE, AND NOVALIS. 349
tUl the nations become conscious of their terrible raadness, and
unite around their forraer altars in peace. Christendora must
again becorae alive and active, and forra a visible Church
without distinction of countries, which receives all into its
bosora. From an honourable European council Christendora
will arise, and a religious awakening will flourish according to
an aU-erabracing divine plan. Then no one will protest any
more against Christian and worldly compulsion, for the very
nature of the church will be true freedora, and all reforras will
be carried on peacefully under the guidance of the church.
When, and how soon ? This is not the question. Only have
patience, the holy tirae of eternal peace will and raust corae,
when the new Jerusalem will be the capital of the world, and
tiU then, partners of ray faith, be cheerful and courageous
amid the dangers of the age. Proclaira the divine Gospel by
word and deed, and be faithful till death to the true eternal
faith." Thus Novalis spoke and hoped. If we once raore review
the short life of Novalis with all his raanifold enors, a noble
spirit will still address us, which struggled for light and
purified itseff in the fire. Had Novalis reached the age of
manhood he would have judged differently of many things.
We cannot be angry vrith his youth, but rauch less can we
choose hira as our guide over the most giddy heights. Novalis
died in the house of his parents in Weissenfels, the 25 th of
March, 1801, in his 29th year; young, indeed, but rich
in sweet and bitter experiences. He had been sickly
whUe yet a child. He was unfortunate in his fir-st love,
through the death of the lady ; frora the ruins he had buUt a
family altar in marrying another lady. Of his ffiends Fr.
Schlegel and Fichte had exerted a great influence over him.
His love for the Redeeraer, which, with all his inclination to
Catholicisra, stUl continued to be the key-note of his rehgious
hfe, sustained him in his afflictions. The Bible which, with
aU his unjust opinions in reference to its spread, he still re
garded highly as God's word, and higher than any other
book, and also the writings of Lavater and Zinzendorf were the
companions of his sick-bed. He died gently, araid the rausic
of the piano which he had asked his brother to play. He had
constantly sought for a symbol of the deepest spiritual rela-

350 EICHTEE, GOETHE, AND NOVALIS.
tions between rausic and nature, to the study of which he
devoted hiraseff. " The expression of his face," says Tieck,
" was very much Uke that of John the Evangelist, as given
on the glorious plate by Albert Durer. . . . His friendli
ness, his geniality, raade hira universaUy beloved. . . He
could be as happy as a chUd, he jested with cheerfulness, and
perraitted himself to becorae the object of jests for the
company. Free from all vanity and pride of leaming, a
stranger to all affectation and hypocrisy, he was a genuine
true raan, the purest and raost lovely embodiraent of a noble
iraraortal spirit."

XXIL
SCHLEIERMACHER.

NEW IMPULSE GIVEN TO PROTESTANTISM BY SCHLEIERMACHER 
" monologues" AND "ADDRESSES ON RELIGION."  MODERN
PROTESTANT THEOLOGY.  SCHLEIERMACHER, DE WETTE, ETC.
 SCHLEIEEMACHEE'S " SYSTEM OF FAITH (GLAUBENS-
LEHRE)."  PARALLEL BETWEEN HERDER AND SCHLEIER
MACHER.
Modern history points to Schleierraacher as the raan from
whora a new epoch in Protestant theology dates, with whom
a new and energetic theological and reUgious tendency com
raenced. The opinion that the Moravians founded by Zinzendorf
form a coraraunion calculated to gather and keep raembers in
the fold of Christ, is conflrraed by the fact that several raen
who exerted a great influence in thefr age proceeded from this
body, and in it received thefr flrst spiritual irapulse. This
was the case with Schleierraacher. He was bom in Breslan,
Nov. 21, 1768. He pursued his collegiate and a part of his
theological studies in the Moravian institutions in Niesky and
Barby. Afterwards he withdrew frora the Moravian com
raunity, and continued his studies in Halle ; stUl, to the end
of his Ufe, he acknowledged the beneficial influences his early

SCHLEIERMACHER. 351
education in it had exerted on hira. " Piety," he says, " was
the worab in whose holy darkness ray young life was nour
ished and prepared for the world still unknown to me ; in it
my spirit breathed before it found its peculiar sphere in science
and life."
When preacher of the hospital in Berlin (from 1796-1802),
Schleierraacher entered into a raore intiraate relation vrith the
brothers Schlegel and the other minds of the roraantic school.
To this period also belong his studies of Plato, and during it
he published the two works of his youth, the " Addresses on
Kehgion," and the "Monologues." We begin with the last
(1800), because they give us a better view of the inner life
of the raan as it reveals itself to his own consciousness, and to
his fellow raen, than a mere biographical sketch can possibly
give. WhUe Goethe declares the investigation and contem- ¦
plation of self a weakness, Schleiermaeher asserts the very
opposite ; and it seeras as if it is spoken against Goethe hira
self when he says: — -"Whoever only sees and knows the
external phenoraena of the raind, without understanding tbe
activity in the depths of his soul ; whoever has only an idea
of his outward life and its changes, without viewing that
which is within, continues to be the slave of time and neces
sity and all his thoughts and reflections bear their irapress."
A spfrit sirailar to that of Fichte breathes in these Monologues.
To conquer self, to have etemal Ufe in us even in this world,
to be conscious of the Ego as soraething indestructible, this is
the fitting end to be sought. " Begin thy eternal Ufe now,"
he says, "in the continual conteraplation of self; be not
anxious about that which is to corae, weep not for that which
perishes ; but be careful not to lose thyself, and weep ff thou
art canied along with the streara of tirae without having
heaven within thee." " It requires but one free resolution to
be a man ; whoever has forraed this resolution vrill always be
one ; he who ceases to be a raan has never been one." With
a joyful pride the speaker reraerabers the tirae when he came
to a consciousness of raan, not through a systera of phUosophy,
but through the inner revelation of a bright raoraent, through
an act of his own ; and he assures us that since then he never lost
sight of himself. In direct opposition to the abstract general-

352 SCHLEIERMACHER.
izing system of morals which regards men merely as mathe
matical quantities, as parts of one and the sarae raass, Schleier
maeher says in his Monologues that each man ought to repre
sent humanity in a peculiar manner. He readily acknow
ledged that it was not bis calling to become an artist, who
makes beautiful images of the external world, and delights in
the perfection of forms ; and here again we find that he forms
a decided contrast to Goethe. He believed it to be his call
ing, his task, to work upon himself, not to produce a work
outside of hiraseff. And this task, he thought, could only be
¦ performed in coraraunion with others. He, however, regarded
that as the true coraraunion in which each one permits the
other to act out his own peculiarities : but each is also the
suppleraent of the other, so that all together forra a true
picture of huraanity.
A powerful, and at the sarae time noble, self-confidence is
expressed in the Monologues — a self-confidence which even
rises to a prediction of his own future — in these rauch ad
mired words : — " I vrill bring my raind to old age unirapaired,
the youthful spirit shall never forsake rae ; what delights me
now shall always delight rae ; my will shall reraain strong, my
fancy lively ; nothing shaU tear frora rae the raagic key which
opens the mysterious gate of the higher world, and never shall
the fire of love be quenched. I will not see the dreaded weak
ness of old age : I promise to scorn every vexation that inter
feres with the object of my existence, and vow to myself an
eternal youth. . . . The spirit that impels huraanity on
ward shall never forsake rae, nor the longing which is never
satisfied with what was, but ever goes to raeet what is to
corae. Let this be the glory I seek to know, that my race
is infinite, but that I am never to stand still in the course.
I shall never think myself old till I have finished ;
but I shall never finish while I know and vrill what I ought.
Till my end I will become stronger and livelier by
every act, and more lovely by every iraproveraent of seff. I
wUl raarry youth to old age, so that the latter raay have the
fulness of the former, and raay be penetrated by its aniraating
warrath. By the conteraplation of self raan gains the ascend
ency over despondency and weakness, so that they cannot
even approach hira ; for eternal youth and joy spring

SCHLEIERMACHER. 353
from the inner consciousness and actions of freedora. I have
apprehended this, and wiU never let it go. And thus vrith
smiles I see the light of the eyes vanish, and the grey hair
appearing araong the light-coloured locks. Nothing that raay
occur can grieve ray heart ; the pulse of the inner life continues
vigorous till death."
Schleierraacher kept his word. All who knew hira in his
old age raust reraeraber the impression the youthful grey-
haired raan made on them. Whoever corapares these Mono
logues with his later Christian writings, raust see that in
the former the moral courage and confidence in his own
powers, even a daring, raoral defiance, are rauch more prorai
nent than that humility and "feelmg of dependence '' which
afterwards becarae the foundation of Schleiermacher's theo
logy. He was conscious of this fact hiraself in his more
advanced age, and in a new edition of the Monologues
declared that in them he had only expressed the ideal he
then strived to attain, and that the conteraplation of self was
held purely frora the ethical standpoint. He wanted to
remove the one-sided irapression which the Monologues gave
of his character, by publishing a series of religious soliloquies,
as a suppleraent to the book. Though he never did this, we
may regard the "Addresses on Religion," which were pub
hshed a year before the Monologues (in 1799), as such a
suppleraent. These " Addresses on Religion to the educated
among its despisers," produced a wonderful effect on their
age. Not only raen like Werner, but raany young men, to
whora all that is called religion appeared like a riddle, were
ennobled and edified by these Addresses. In order to reaUse
this, we raust transfer ourselves to the age in which they
were written (and the sarae must be done in judging of the
Monologues), and Schleiermaeher hiraself, in the third edition
(1821), calls attention to the fact that the tiraes had changed
remarkably, and that it appeared that the persons for whom
the Addresses were originally intended, no longer existed.^
' " In looking about among the educated (he continues) one might find it more
necessary to write addresses to those affecting piety and to slaves of the letter.
to the ignorant and harshly censuring, superstitious and hyperorthodox."
This Schleiermaeher wrote in 1821, twenty-two years after the publication of
the first edition of the Addresses. It is now (1841) just twenty-two years
since then. And what is the aspect of things now ? We have slaves of the
letter and scoffers, and of what kind ! Z

354 SCHLEIERMACHER.
We must, therefore, caU to mind the fact, that through the
Kantian phUosophy, which still had its followers among the
educated, religion had been changed to mere raorality, and
that all that refers to the public exercises of religion was
regarded as raerely for that class of individuals who could
not attain pure raorality. The attendance of divine worship
was frequently justified by the educated on the ground that
it was not for their own sake, but to set a good exaraple.
This despising of religion, through an entire misapprehension
of its true nature, Schleierraacher opposed in his Addresses in
the raost decided raanner. In opposition both to the view
that religion exists only for the sake of leaming (whether as
dead raatter of transmitted dograas, or as an interesting sub
ject for phUosophical discussion), and to that also which
degrades it to a raere raoral corrective, a raass of mere com
raandraents and prohibitions, he atterapted to restore it to its
proper sphere and original rights, by raaking the feeling its
seat. By feeling he did not raean the agitation of transient
emotions, which ceased as rapidly as they were excited, and
becorae the deceitful play of the frarae of raind at the
raoraent, not that irritability which he attacked eamestly ;
but the inraost part of man, the central point, the focus
of his spiritual life, the source and root of all our think
ing, striving, aud acting. Religion cannot be learned from
anything external ; it cannot be imparted by dograas and
precepts ; it raust originate in the heart of the pious as
something felt and experienced, and must announce itself as
a power controlling all, appropriating all. The religious man
is given to reflection, to the contemplation of the depths of
his soul, and all else, whether it appears as definite knowledge
and reality, is regarded as secondary and derivative.
In these fundaraental principles of the nature of religion
Schleierraacher agrees with F. H. Jacobi, who, as we have
seen, also tried to free divine things frora the slavery of dead
notions, whether of theology or philosophy, and to place
them in the depths of the soul, not to lie there buried as
hidden treasures in holy darkness, but that they raight arise
frora this depth to the Ught, Uke pure soUd gold, as the
inaUenable possession of our nature dependent on no change
of systems. But while Jacobi had viewed reUgion more in

SCHLEIERMACHER. 355
its generaUty, and had failed to show it in its historical definite
ness as essentially Christian, Schleierraacher showed that the
so-caUed natural religion, to which the educated of the age
were raostly inclined, is a chiraera, a mere abstraction of the
understanding, and that religion only exerts an influence;
when it appears as a definite, positive power. He gave spe
cial prominence to the element of society in religion, which
Jacobi had entirely neglected, and showed, that in all ages,
those individuals who were pecuUarly affected by the reUgious
life, also affected society in general, and as founders of reU
gion gathered a coraraunion around thera. Without raention
ing Christ except in connection vrith the other founders
of religions, vrithout denoting the Christian religion as that
one which is alone destined to be the real religion of the
human race, still in these Addresses he pointed his age to
the way which led out of these generaUties, to that which is
definitely Christian. " These Addresses," as a raodern theo
logian very justly remarks, " are rather apologies for reUgion
in general than for Christianity in particular ; they have
been delivered, as it were, in the forecourt of theology, in the
court of the heathen ;" and yet they evidently contain the
foundation of what Schleierraacher afterwards developed in
his " Glaubenslehre " (Doctrine of faith).
The grievous charge of Pantheism was raised against these
Addresses — a charge that is little expected after we have
seen the relation in which Schleiermaeher stood to Jacobi.
It is indeed true that the Addresses bear the irapress of Pan
theisra in their entire tone and raode of expression Neither
a personal God nor personal iraraortality, as held by Ration
alism, found a place in thera. On the contrary, there are
passages enough which call to raind the very opposite of
Jacobi's view, the philosophy of Schelling ; passages in which
the aU, the universe, the absolute, take the place of a Being
known and caUed by the narae of God, and in which it
seems to be the highest aira of our desires to be absorbed in
this One and All. But here too, we raust think of the tirae
when these Addresses were written, and of the people to
whora they were addressed. There was a faith in a personal
God which reverenced in God a Being supernatural and dis- j
tinct from the world, who, however, enters into no near rela- '

356 SCHLEIERMACHER.
tion to humanity, but lives a life of self-complacency, uncon
cerned about the world and its inhabitants, and who at best,
as He has created tbe world, wiU also at one tirae retum to
judge it. In opposition to this cold deistic faith, at that
tirae haunting raany who called themselves the educated, and
which stUl haunts many minds and hearts, Schleierraacher
placed the living spiritual view of a God dwelling in the
world, always present with us, uniting Hiraself with our
nature and becoraing our friend, and making us happy by
making His habitation within us. It cannot be denied that
in doing this he not only bordered on Pantheistic raodes of
expression, but actually adopted thera more than was neces
sary to the attainraent of his end ; but it cannot be asserted
that in after life Schleierraacher never attained a mode of
thinking different frora the Pantheistic. This idea is not
only contradicted by his own explicit expressions, but also
his entire Christian developraent. It was in direct oppo
sition to the coraraon sort of " AUeinheitter," as he called
those who only hid their unbelief of the supematural behind
Pantheisra, and also in opposition to the romantic poetasters
who made sport of reUgion in their insipid poetry, that he
had already in his Addresses said that only when philoso
phers would become religious and seek God, like Spinoza,
and the artisis become pious and love Christ, like Novalis,
the tirae of resurrection would corae for both worlds — the
worlds of philosophy and of art.
In reference to iraraortality Schleierraacher declares that the
coraraon raanner of thinking of it neither agrees with piety
nor proceeds frora it ; that with raany the belief in immortal
ity is even in^eligious, because their desire to be immortal
has no other ground than their aversion to the real object of
religion ; because they are more anxious to find the sharply
defined outUnes of their own personality again, than to find
God and the divine life. To such he thinks the word of the
Lord applicable, "he that loseth his life for ray sake shall
find it," and vice versa. The raore they long for an iramor-
taUty of which they can forra no conception, the raore they
lose of that imraortality which they raight enjoy already in
this world. He who has learned to be more than himself,
knows that he loses but little when he loses hiraseff. And

SCHLEIERMACHER. 357
only he who is united with God, in whose soul a great and
holy longing has originated, has a right to iraraortality ; and
only vrith such a man can we speak of the hope which death
gives, and of the eternity to which we infallibly rise after
death. Schleiermacher's mind was still more decidedly directed to
theological science, by being called to a professorship of
philosophy and theology in Halle in 1802, and by an appoint
ment in the newly founded University of Berlin in 1810;^
and henceforth we shall see hira moving in the raore definite
sphere of theological activity.
In raentioning Schleiermaeher as the raan frora whora a
new period in Protestant theology dates, we of course did not
mean that it was in the power of a single raan, however
talented he raight be, to give a new tendency to the age, and
to give it the impress of his spirit exclusively ; nor that only
one raan is to be taken into the account in this raatter.
Schleierraacher, who hiraself acknowledged that it was only
in connection with others that he could accoraplish any thing
great, would have been the first to object to assigning hiraself
such a place in history. In this period we find a general
striving to reconcile the difficulties between Rationalisra and
Supernaturalisra in an intellectual raanner. Thus sorae by
speculative phUosophy, as the venerable Daubin^ in Heidel
berg, attempted to introduce a profound mode of theological
thinking, which was to penetrate the lowest depths of the
dogmas ; while others sought on the psychological way,
which Kant and Fichte had before tried, to separate what
belongs to knowledge in religious matters, from tbat which
belongs to faith and anticipation, two powers of the raind not
sufficiently regarded by Kant, but which are as real as the
' The positions occupied by Schleiermaeher are the following :— 1794, assist
ant curate at Landswerth on the Warthe; 1796-1802, preacher of tbe Hospital
in Berlin; 1802, court preacher in Stolpe, and the same year university preacher
and professor at Halle. In 1807 he returned to Berlin, and, like Fichte, de
livered lectures to a mixed audience. In 1809 he became preacher of the
Trinity Church, Berlin; 1810, professor there; and 1811 member of the
academy. It is very significant that he was at the same time preacher and
professor, and that his professorship was divided between theology and
philosophy. ' Born in Cassel 1765, formerly professor in Haanau.

358 SCHLEIERMACHER.
faculty of knowing. They attempted to prevent the rough
treatment of the mysteries of faith by directing atten
tion to the insufficiency of huraan language, and to lead the
religious thinker to anticipate soraething higher, behind the
syrabolical expressions, soraething eluding both our language
and the representations of our senses. In the place of a
merely intellectual and cold, calculating mode of contempla
tion, they wanted one distinctly conscious of its activity,
piously aniraated, one akin to that vrith which we regard a
beautiful work of art, and which, on this account, has been
called the esthetic. And here is the place to raention the
man who first introduced this mode of contemplation into
theology, and thus with Schleierraacher exerted on it an im
pelling and renovating infiuence.
But if I have deterrained to raention the living as little
as possible, a still raore tender regard coraes into considera
tion here, which prevents rae from unfolding to you the
system of a teacher who is entitled, both by his local and
personal relations to us all, to give an account of himself in
his own way ; and it may suffice that I have raerely referred
to his efforts, and those of others, which we regard as a sup
plement to those of Schleierraacher.''
' To what I have said by word of mouth the following may be added. The
tendency of De Wette, like that of Protestantism in general, is double, critically
negative, and dogmatically positive. Many who know only the former side of
Ds Wette 's labours, his free criticism, namely, in reference to the sacred canon
and mythical treatment of the Old Testament history, do him injustice in plac
ing him, on that account, in the same category with the destructive minds.
/ Whoever is acquainted with the history of theological science, knows that De
Wette opposed Rationalism, and advocated, of course conditionally, and from
the stand-point of his philosophical mode of thinking, Old-Lutheran orthodoxy.
He published the statement that " the person of Jesus, His life and death, and
faith in him form the centre of Christianity," (see his work, "Religion and
Theology," p. 444), on which account he was regarded as a mystic by the real
Eationalists, see his Dogmatics, and especially his easily understood work on
" Das Wesen des christlichen Glaubens vom .standpunkte des Glaubens darges-
tellt,'- (Basle, 1846.) De Wette and Schleiermaeher were charged with being
vacillating and undecided in their judgment ; but it is a question whether real
science is more promoted by rendering a verdict from orthodox or speculative
premises, and then being done with the matter, or by modestly saying non-liquet
in things which are hypothetical in their nature. In reference to his essential
convictions, De Wette always sustained himself. To test these convictions
themselves is tbe business of science. Historical fidelity required this brief
explanation.

SCHLEIEEMACHER. 359
[Hagenbach now foUows the political history of Gerraanj"-
for some tirae, refers to the three hundredth aniversary of the
Reformation, etc., only now and then raentioning Schleier
maeher. Herefers to the fact that Schleierraacherconsidered the
ninety-five thesesofClausHarras against rationalism an arrogant
undertaking, though he esteeraed Harras hiraself as a well-
meaning, ingenious, and truly Christian raan, and was far
from being a friend to rationaUsra. Speaking of the atterapt
in Prussia to unite the Lutheran and Reforraed Churches,
Hagenbach says : " The sarae persons who were called on to
assist in affecting a union, as Schleierraacher for instance,
spoke of the differences of the two confessions. Among the
Reforraed theologians Schleierraacher was the first, after a long
while, who again defended the doctrine of election in an acute
manner." The union of the two churches was actually accora-
phshed in 1821. In order to raeet the wants of the tiraes
the king had a liturgy forraed, which was introduced into the
court and garrison churches, and was recoraraended to all the
other congregations of the land. But it was irapossible to
please aU. To the strict Lutherans the liturgy appeared too
indefinite and yielding too much to tbe Reformed. To the
Reforraed, on the other hand, " the lighting of candles by day
Ught, the kneeUng, the singing of the minister before the
altar, etc., appeared quite Catholic." The Rationalists found
the liturgy too orthodox. " There were some also who
carried their dissatisfaction with political raatters into this de
partment, and charged the king with the intention of acquir
ing dominion over the conscience in order to enable bim to
accoraplish other measures more easily. The dispute soon
became a legal one, and the question, how far has the king,
as ruler of the land, a right to prescribe forras for the use of
public worship, and to force a certain raode of divine worship
in the churches, was answered differently by jurists and
theologians. In this dispute Schleierraacher advocated the
freedora of conscience." (The liturgic right of an EvangeUcal
ruler, by Pacificus Sinceras, 1824). Hagenbach then, after
giring a short account of Steffens activity in defending
Lutheranisra, returns to Schleierraacher. — Tr.]
To return to Schleierraacher, as we have seen hira taking
an active part in all the great moveraents of the church, so

360 SCHLEIERMACH EE.
we find hira in his two-fold relation as learned theologian and
preacher, affecting the religious convictions in an instructive,
positive and corrective raanner. His "Glaubenslehre'' (system
of faith), the first edition of which was published in 1821, was
intended to be a systera offaith ofthe Evangelical, that is, united
church, and to satisfy both the scientific and religious wants of
the age. We cannot give a detailed analysis and criticisra of
the work, but will only give its outlines. His system of faith
differs chiefly from all those preceding, in that it was really to be
a system of faith, a statement of what was believed, and not the
product of a philosophical school. Schleierraacher, who pos
sessed the very highest phUosophical culture, and was distin
guished as an author inthe departraent of philosophy, opposed
all raingling of philosophy and theology.^ He does not think
that theology stands or falls with any philosophical system,
but with religion and the church. Where there is no religion
there is no theology, and where there is no experience of
divine things there is no understanding of them, however
rich and extensive philosophical knowledge may be. Nor is
religion an affair of knowledge chiefly, but of the inraost self-
consciousness and feeling, and indeed Schleierraacher based
his whole theology on this feeling of dependence on God. He
does not consider it the business of dograatics to answer the
question how God is in Himself, but how He is related to our
pious feeling. As, however, the pious feeling developes in the
coraraunity, a Christian systera of faith must also represent
the Christian feeling of a comraunity as it lives in the church.
But Schleierraacher does not regard the Christian society as a
rough mass of people of all kinds of opinions, but as a religious
organisra, the body of which Christ is the head. He regarded
Christ the Redeeraer, not as an ideal creation of the raind, but
the real historical Christ, as He lived in history, and stiU
lives in the Church, as the centre of Christian theology. He
vrill have nothing to do with a doctrine of Christ which can
be coraprehended and represented as nothing but doctrine,
and entirely distinct from his person ; but first, when we
' " Speculation and faith are often regarded as standing opposite each other in
a hostile manner ; but it was peculiar in this man that he united both most in
timately, without doing injustice to the freedom aud depth of the one, or to the
simplicity of the other." — 'W. von Humboldt.

SCHLEIERMACHER. 361
eater into a li-ring relation to the " Redeeraer,'' do we becorae
partakers of Christianity according to its true nature ? He
continually proclairaed in his serraons, as well as theological
vmtings, that with Christ soraething entirely new begins in
the history of the world as well as in that of an individual ;
that with hira, the Sinless-One, the raere dorainion of nature,
the dominion of sin, ceases, and the reign of grace, the un
hmited dominion of divine Spirit, coraraences and spreads,
hence, that without Christ no salvation can be found ; and by
this means Schleierraacher brought theology back to faith,
But in doing this he thought the principal thing was accora
plished. While, therefore, on the one band with his decided
faith in Christ, frora which he would not let an iota be taken
away, he raight appear as a raystic or a philosophical Moravian
who made even the absurd plausible with his dialectics, he
gave offence on the other by the freethinking raanner in which
he expressed hiraself in reference to sorae parts of dogmatics,
and sorae books of Scripture, and their relation to the entire
canon,^ for he did not regard these as the essence of Chris
tianity, but thought this consisted in the free grace of God in
Christ. Schleierraacher can be corapared with Herder in this respect,
that both were blaraed by sorae for orthodoxy, by others for
heterodoxy, and neither belonged to any leagued fraternity of
phUosopbers or school of theology. Both gave a great im
pulse to young raen. Herder by means of his letters on the
study of theolog-y, and Schleierraacher by raeans of his
outhne of the study of theology (Berlin 1830.)^ Both had
this in comraon, too, that they were not raere theologians, but
vrith their general knowledge were also active as authors in
other departraents, and thus acquired a reputation in circles
not theologfical. But while Herder was raore brilUant as a
poet, Schleierraacher surpassed hira in philosophical culture.
Herder made the dark bright by his quick flashes of thought.
Schleierraacher took the fine thread, on which the raost diffi
cult inquiries were hanging, through the labyrinth of conflict
ing contrasts. In the latter fancy steps behind dialectics,
behind an understanding supported by feeling. WhUe
' See his Kritisches Sendschreiben on the first epistle of Timothy (Berlin,
1807), and his work on Luke, 1817.
2 Translated into English. (Edin. 1850.)

362 SCHLEIERMACHER.
Herder connected a deep insight into oriental life, with his
taste for the ancient spirit ofthe Greeks, Schleierraacher's educa
tion continued to be 'entirely occidental. It has, therefore,
been charged against the latter, that he regarded the great
sis;nificance of the Old Testament too little, while Herder was
quite at horae here, and might rather be said to have valued
the New Testament too lightly.
We may therefore say that both form supplements to each
other in a certain sense, and, it is not without significance that
Herder stands at the comraenceraent of the critical period, and
Schleierraacher at its end. And as we began the historical
representation of this critical period with Herder, we may
close it with Schleierraacher, since what reraains to be said
belongs too rauch to the present to be ripe for history. Only
let the foUowing be raentioned— Schleiermaeher was rejoiced
with numerous intellectual descendants : for we not only
count those among his followers who repeated his system in
his own words, but we value the irapulse which he gave to
the study of theology in general, and the blessing he brought
indirectly through others. Many started frora hira who after
wards took another course, raost of thera are raore positive
than he. Yet it was frequently alleged that he led persons
to pietisra. Others took a different course. But we may
confidently say that no theologian of any importance, what
ever raight be his tendency, has appeared in the last decen
naries wbo did not, for a while at least, sit at the feet of
Schleierraacher, exercise his raind on his powerful thoughts,
and gain great and enlarged views frora the study of his
works. Of course there was a counteraction raanffested
frora various sides. The older rationalism felt itself uncom
fortably infiuenced by the new life which now began to be
unfolded in the church, accused Schleiermaeher of ambiguity,
and especiaUy of pantheisra, which they said he enveloped
skilfully in ChrLstian expressions;^ but while we have seen
that this charge was just when applied to those who arbi
trarily deviate frora the historical basis of Christianity, and
resolve all in the raist of their speculation, yet when appUed
to Schleierraacher it could only be founded on an error. Nor
' Even the name Schleiermaeher (maker of veils), was used for many witti
cisms.

SCHLEIEEMACHER. 363
was the theology of Schleierraacher acceptable to the strictly
orthodox party (Harras, for instance) ; they avoided, even de
tested, the sharpness of his criticisra, and deraanded an uncon
ditional return to the old system. Their nuraber increased
risibly ; they gradually gathered around names that were be
coming prominent, and created their organs. Soon aU was
changed on the theological horizon. While ten or twenty
years previous not enough of the old could be thrown aside,
now among the younger race a real rivalry was manifested to
surpass the fathers and grandfathers in pure orthodoxy.
Eemai-kable ! The young longed for the old again, and the
old were unwilling to leave that which had once been fresh
and new to thera. As now, a new phUosophy appeared which
overthrew entirely the authority of Kant and his school, and
promised orthodoxy a firm support, while it threatened ration-
ahsm with destraction — the triuraph was apparently cora
plete. Only one question reraained, whether this philosophy
could be perraanently trusted, or whether behind it an eneray
might not be lurking who was more dangerous than the
former ? This new philosophy is tbe system of Hegel, of
which rauch has already been said, and of which we will speak
in the next place.

XXIII.
HEGEL AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
HEGEL : HIS PHILOSOPHY AND OTHER TENDENCIES OF OUR DAY.
 RIGHT AND LEFT SIDE OF HIS PHILOSOPHY.  STRAUSS. 
FEUERBACH AND BRUNO BAUR,-  OTHER PHILOSOPHICAL
TENDENCIES.  MODEEN SCIENCE AND THE PRESENT THE
OLOGY.  PRACTICAL CHRISTLiNITY OF OUR DAY.  MODERN
PIETI SM
With the Hegelian philosophy we corae to the last stadi
um in the history of the developraent of Protestantisra on

364 HEGEL AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
the part of science ; with it we enter the present, and step
upon the unsafe border of what cannot yet be erabraced in
history. Hegel hiraself is no longer araong the living, and
hence it raight be thought that his system is concluded, and
belongs to the past, if the effects of the Hegelian philosophy
had not first become evident after his death, and that too, in
different tendencies ; so that, vrith the material itself so hard,
it becoraes doubly difficult to determine what Hegel himself
desired in reference to religion and the church. If, in
treating of forraer philosophers, Kant, Fichte, and ScheUing,
we had to deny ourselves the pleasure of obtaining a satis
factory insight into the internal connection of each system,
we raust be still more raodest in our wishes here, for only a
perfect knowledge of the former systems can enable us to
understand this. Besides, no other philosophy is so purelj'-
and exclusively speculative as this ; none offers less popular
points, none is so difficult to be transposed into other words
and conceptions, without disturbing its own nature, because
Hegel himself with certain words connects only certain ideas,
and expects us to study ourselves into a language entirely
new. A Hegelian lexicon, and a Hegelian grararaar are, how
ever, not so easily formed. We shall therefore, as far
as the systera is concerned, have to be satisfied with
little, and can only bring to view that which stands in the
nearest relation to the religious and Christian view of lffe.
Here the foUovring main points may suffice.
Schleierraacher as well as Jacobi, placed the essence of
religion chiefly in feeling, and regarded knowledge as secondary,
while Hegel on the other hand insisted on hiotuledge above
all other things. Feeling he regards as merely a subordinate
form of religion, even the worst of aU forms, because it is
only subjective, that is, concems only one individual. Con
sequently that feeling of dependence in which Schleierraacher
places religion, is no better in his eyes than the instinctive
feeling of dependence that attaches the dog to his raaster
But in the departraent of knowledge too, Hegel makes a
distinction between the religious conception as it proceeds
frora feeling, or frora the idea in the raind. The lower classes
of people may be satisfied with religious conceptions (as of
heaven, heU, etc.,) but not the real thinker. He rather dis-

HEGEL AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 365
covers a contradiction between that which the conception is
intended to express, and what it really does express ; this
contradiction must be solved, it must, as Hegel says, be raised,
that is, raust be changed to soraething higher, soraething
standing above the contradiction. The gradation of religious
knowledge in individuals as well as nations is this ; a raan
receives the reUgious matter offered him as something external,
something heterogeneous and objective to him, without being
thoroughly penetrated by it. The next requireraent there
fore is, that he inquire into the raatter, penetrate it, appro
priate it to himself, in doing this, however, it easily happens
that he subjects what is given, to his own arbitrary choice,
and makes the things what he desires them to be, instead of
taking thera as they are. The ancient times took the former
course in reference to religion ; positive orthodoxy took the
material handed down to it, just as it was offered, as a brittle
tough-mass, reason subjected its opinions and inclinations to
what the church deterrained. The raodern time, however, is
distinguished by the atterapt to arrange and appropriate
what is transraitted. In the former, therefore, objective
torpidity appeared ; in the latter subjective arbitrariness.
The new philosophy atterapts to elevate the thinking raind
above both stand-points, since it neither perraits the raaterial
offered to reraain objective to us, nor allows it to be drawn to
outselves, while the thinking is subject to our own arbitrary
choice. The enraity between the " thing in itself," or the
thing per se, and the thinking Ego is to be solved in this
way, that the individual does not place hiraself, thinking,
guessing, and supposing, in opposition to things, and forra a
casual conception of thera according to his own pleasin-e ; but
that with self-denial (yet with freedom) he examine them,
permit the spirit prevailing in them, to influence hira, and
thus consciously raake hiraself raaster of the conception.
Thus far we can but recognize a beneficial progress of know
ledge in Hegel's principles of thought. What Schelling had
asserted of nature and our relations to it, that we raust watch
for its secrets, raust enter its quiet drearas, its fancies and its
thoughts, if we desire to attain a living view of it ; this
Hegel required, with less poetry indeed, but with the sterner
demand of thought, of those things which belong to history

366 HEGEL AND HIS SUCCES.SORS.
and raorality, of the works of art, of law and of religion. He
wanted to furnish a false realism, with an ideal view of things,.
as much as to lead a partial idealism back to reality ; he
wanted the raaterial, the solid, to be spiritualized, but the
airy and the spiritual whicii had been separated frora its body
to be erabodied again. He wanted the period of negation to
be followed by one of affirraation, the period of doubt by one
of certainty. The spirit was to apprehend and coraprehend
itself, even its lowest depths, and was no longer to wander
about as a drearaer araong the drearaing.
In direct opposition to Kant, who had denied reason the
right to philosophize about divine things, Hegel demanded
the right of searching after God. But he did ndt want to
do this in the old way, as if the finite could of itself com
prehend the infinite. The raanner is rather inverted ; God
comprehends himself in man, coraes to consciousness in him ;
for as God, (according to the Bible), once becarae man in
Christ, so He (according to Hegel) is still continuaUy becom
ing raan in us. Reason and Revelation, according to Hegel,
do not contradict each other ; the latter, however, places that
as general truth for the conception, vvhich the forraer brings
to the perception raore in iraages. If now, according to Hegel,
the essence of real philosophy consists in not raerely knowing
the huraan, but in knowing God as He is, then this is a prero
gative which philosophy bas in coraraon vrith the Christian
Revelation, though in a different raanner ; for the essence of
the Christian Revelation cannot consist in this, that it dis-
raisses us with a few moral common-place instructions, but
that it reveals to us the depths of the Godhead. Hegel asks,
vrith Lessing, " What were a Revelation which reveals no
thing ?" Hegel thinks the essence of revelation consists in
revealing God as the Triune One. Thus he caUs God in His
abstract generality the Father ; in so far, however, as He, the
Known, is distinguished frora the Knowing, with whom He
is, however, one and the sarae. He is called the Son, while it
is the Spirit who brings the Father and Son in the essence of
God to a unity of consciousness. Here the plain Christian
may very properly ask, whether these depths, to which the
HegeUan speculation requires us to descend, are the same
dejiths to which the Christian doctrine of Redemption leads

HEGEL AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 367
those longing for salvation. And, after a little reflection, he
will find, unless he is beguiled by forras, that the knowledge
to which the Bible leads us, is not a knowledge for the sake of
knowing and coraprehending raerely, but that it serves for the
confirmation of our salvation, and that the doctrine of the
Father, Son, and Spirit, has significance for us only, as we
love the Father, like children, yield ourselves to Christ for
salvation, and to the Spirit for reproof and sanctification ; for
" if I understand all raysteries," says the apostle, " and have
not charity, piety, I ara nothing." This practical significance
of religious knowledge, which aims at our salvation, which
Pietism frequently regarded too gloomUy, and Rational
ism soraetiraes too insipidly, was too rauch neglected by
Hegel. We allow his speculative tendency its perfect right
in its proper place ; but it must not push aside religion, or
attempt to elevate itself above it. And here Hegel and
Schleiermaeher differ raost widely, for while the former per
mits religion and theology to be absorbed by philosophy, the
latter keeps thera distinct, and grants the life of religious
emotions and pious communion ; in a word, the life of faith,
a free, vigorous, prosperity on its own root, even independent
of the course of development of philosophical systeras, without,
however, by this raeans closing it against the influences of
spechlation. And tUl the present day it is a question whether
those who think the stand-point of believers does not reach
that of philosophers, raay not be answered that tbeir thinking
does not reach the stand-point of true faith. As little, how
ever, as sound can be sraelled, or colour tasted, can the tvvo
departments be raingled in the raind. Here is another very
important difference between Hegel and Schleierraacher. Since
Schleierraacher does not raake religion dependent on philoso
phical thinking, but regards it as soraething experienced by
the pious, the definite historical appearance of the Saviour in
the world, the historical Christ, and the institution of the
Cburch founded by Hira, have far more significance in Schleier
macher's system of theology than ui Hegel's, in whose writings
it is often uncertain how far the expressions about the God
man refer to Christ who reaUy appeared, or only to the ideal
speculative Christ, to whom the historical Christ is related
very nearly as a single specimen to the genius which it repre
sents. We shall return to tbis point in speaking of Strauss .

368 HEGEL AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
If in the meantirae we ask what infiuence Hegel exerted on
his age, we see hira taking a stand in decided opposition to the
then prevailing Rationalisra. What they caUed reason he at
tacked as a raischievous confusion of prejudices, flat nonsense,
and dead formalism. In opposition to the insipid reasoning-
" enlightenment" of the understanding, he advocated the pro
found orthodoxy, and again brought into honour the despised
scholastics. He denied that the Rationalists had a theology,
since to them God was an unknown soraething, of whora they
could say nothing. The exact graramatical-historical inter
pretation of the Bible, for which many of the rationalistic
school became famous, seemed to him spiritless, and a stoop
ing to the letter, in which opinion, of course, his foUowers
too willingly agreed with him. But Hegel also opposed de
cidedly the political liberalisra then foaraing and ferraenting
araong the students. In the strictest opposition to the ideal
improvers of the world, who were dissatisfied with the present,
and dreamed of new forras of govemraent, and new state or
ganizations, he advanced the proposition, so often misapplied
afterwards, because misunderstood, that whatever rcoH?/ exists,
is also right and reasonable. This statement, properly under
stood, became a great law for the study of history. How
very different appeared now the raiddle ages, for instance, and
all that had been forraed and fashioned since then ! While
forraerly each one had placed himself above history, now each
(.rae learned to subject hiraself to it, and gained a respect for
that which had becorae historical. Thus, this phUosophy at
its first appearance was favourably received by those who
feared the political enthusiasra of an excited youth. The his
torical school, too, appeared to receive as firra a support from
Hegel in the departraents of law, of art, and politics, and the
orthodoxy of the Church. And yet how soon matters changed.
Scarcely had Hegel closed his eyes in death, when, in close
connection with what the July revolution in France (1830)
had accorapUshed, the disciples of this very philosophy, under
the narae of Young Germany, proclairaed a doctrine which
men of order had rauch raore right to fear, than the political
youthful drearas of the so-called Teutoraanes (Deutschthuem-
ler). With the same logical skUl with which the master ap-

HEGEL AND HIS SUCCESSOES. 369
peared to build up they pulled down. And this they did
(apparently, at least), without being false to the systera ; for
if revolutionizing had once become the order of the day, conse
quently something within the sphere of reality, it could ap
pear justifiable from the proposition that the real is the right.
If the poUtical horizon changed, the theories adapted to the
times also changed. France, which had taken the lead, now
appeared as the model-state, and the hero of the forraer age.
Napoleon, vrith whora Hegel had already shown rauch sym
pathy, becarae the hero of Young Gerraany. The old Wart
burg stories, German coats, &c., were laughed at, and cosmopo-
Utism, as it was reflected in France, was raade a poUtical
dogma If this had happened only in politics it would con
cern us no further ; but the sarae thing was experienced in the
departraent of theology ; Hegel had restored the positive in
theology to authority; in his system, orthodoxy appeared 'to
receive a new and firm, because scientific support, though it
was erident to those who did not permit theraselves to be de
ceived by forras that Hegel's orthodoxy was not very serious, or
at least not so much so as the admirers of the raaster desired
it to be considered. The HegeUan trinity was neither that of
Athanasius and the syrabolical books, nor that of the Bible
and Bible-Christians, and Hegel could less repel the suspicion
of pantheisra, than Schleiermaeher, whose speculative views
found their suppleraent in those of faith. The indefinite, the
ambiguous, and the oracular, which with all his logical acute
ness and strictness of raethod, were not wanting in Hegel's
works, could of themselves raake it possible that the disciples,
soon after his death, should dispute about the raaster's words,
and should separate into two parties, who, with a soraewhat
distorted reference to the political parties in parliaraent,^ were
caUed the right and left side. The right side, represented by
honourable, leamed, and clever men, by those who had received
their first impulse from Schleiermaeher, attempted to prove
that Hegel was quite serious in reference to Christianity, and
that only by pursuing this course a real mediation could be
found between Rationalisra and SupernaturaUsra. The charge
' In both houses in Prussia those who sided with the king formerly sat on the
right side. The term was first applied to the Hegelians by Bauer.— Tb.
2 A

370 HEGEL AND HIS SUCCESSOES.
that the new speculation changes the doctrines of the church
by raisinterpretation, is refuted by it in replying that it made
thera profounder and gave thera life, while they had forraerly
been petrified by some, and rendered shallow by others ;
Pantheisra (they taught, raoreover), is a bugbear to those only
who cannot reconcile theraselves to a God dwelUng in the
world, and who need a personal God for their selfish and per
sonal airas. The left side, as is weU known, found its raost
decided and ready advocate in Strauss, who openly declared in
his " Life of Jesus," that what the church and the beheving
world has hitherto regarded as history is but a rayth. • The
terra rayth was nothing new. Neither did it originate in the
Hegelian school. The theologians of a mediating tendency
had long cherished the thought that not every story in the
Bible is to be received as real history, still less to be so in
terpreted as to appear natural, as the Rationalists had at
terapted to do ; but that events of the higher spiritual Ufe, as
they occur at all times in the department of faith, raeet us in
the forra of histories, whose eternal contents are to be separ
ated frora the surrounding forra. Already had Origen tended
to this with his allegorical interpretations, and the mystics
had attempted something similar. Clearly conscious of what
it was doing, the new theology attempted to separate the his
torical, and the symbolical wrapped in a historical dress. With
this new (modern) aira as his starting point, De Wette refened
a large part of the Old Testaraent histories to the mythical,
and Schleierraacher, too, had not hesitated to receive those ac
counts of the Gospel which relate to the first childhood of Jesus
and his ascension as the poetical expression of the trath, that
the beginning and end of this wonderful life are to be mea
sured as little by the laws of coraraon experience as the lffe
itself It was thought that by this raeans such accounts
would be taken out of the hands of unbelievers, since they
were taken into a region which the coramon prosaic under
standing could not enter.
But what was thus keptwithin bounds, Strauss carried beyond
aU limits, since he did not only regard the dress as containing
mythical eleraents, but the kernel itself of the lffe of Jesus as
the product of a pious poetical fancy, such as had been pos
sessed by the first Christian congregations. He did not per-

HEGEL AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 371
mit the waves of poetical genius to bport on the surface of the
Gospel accounts, but from the depths of the whole the new
interpreter conjured a giant-spirit, hitherto unknown, which
succeeded in moring the earth out of its course and in calUng
into existence a religion, like the Christian, by raeans of pious
poetry. Strauss suddenly inverted the relation that had been
received tUl then, Christ had not founded the Church, but the
Church had invented Christ, had forraed him out of the pre
dictions of the Old Testaraent and the hopes and expectations
of the age founded on thera. A rich layer of rairacle-stories
had forraed itseff around this sraall kernel, so that it would
be very difficult to find in it any thing purely historical
according to this presupposition.^ Independent of the ira
probable and arbitrary grounds on which Strauss atterapted
to estabUsh the particulars of this view, it always appeared
very reraarkable to the raore thoughtful, who were not led
astray by the iUusive appearance of the arguraent, that such
a Christian association could think and live itself into such
an ideal, if it did not bring with it the reraerabrance of sorae
thing, that had really been experienced, that had really been
seen. The personal support is wanting here in history, as it
is universaUy in the pantheistic systeras. Strauss, however,
would have given a powerful proof of the power of the reU
gious idea, if this idea had reaUy succeeded in inventing a
Christ. One would then think of the words of Herder : " If
the fisherracn of GalUee have invented such a history, God be
praised that they invented it," or of those of Claudius, that
one might even die for such an idea. Strauss himself asserted,
that according to his notion the historical Christ indeed is
lost, but that his ideal divine-huraan Christ did raore for
rehgious elevation, than the Jesus of the Rationalists, who
was indeed historical, but only human and robbed of all
identity. How little support an ideal Christianity had, the
historical foundation being taken frora it, soon became evident,
and but a few years passed after the appearance of the " Life of
Jesus" before the entire Christian doctrine, with which Strauss
had comforted his readers in his appendix, was torn to pieces
' Strauss boasted, that he was free from all presuppositions, whilst be over
looked those, from which he started, and which others proved on him.

372 HEGEL AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
and scattered to the winds. Those who had hoped Strauss would
buUd up dogmatically what he had torn down historically,
found theraselves grievously disappointed at the appearance of
his Dograatics (Glaubenslehre) 1 840. Novv it vvas asserted,
that modern science and the faith of Christians could never
agree, and that a reconciliation was impossible. And in this
others soon agreed with Strauss. There were those who went
even farther than Strauss, who called that which he had con
sidered pious poetry the sum of religious enthusiasra, and the
designed invention of an individual (as Bruno Bauer), and
who not only regarded all positive (revealed) religion as false,
but (with Feuerbach) the religion of man in general as self-
deception. What else could foUow from these presuppositions,
but the conclusion so welcome to raany, that the glooray reli
gion which constrained raen would cease and raake place for
a cheerful philosophy ? If now to this philosophy a new
poetical school is united, corresponding with it, which orders
the cross to be torn frora the earth and which promises to
conjure up, not the ancient gods of Greece (in the sense of
Schiller), but gross heathenisra, then, of course, the history of
Protestantisra is ended, if the edge of a bottomless abyss is
really the object which Protestantism has to gain.
It would indeed make me sad, if now, after leading you
through so many vrindings and turnings of the way, through
dry deserts and steppes, and also through raany cultivated
regions, through raany luxuriant groves, I should have to lay
down the guide's staff and say : we have corae to our journeys
end. But, God be praised ! we have only foUowed one side
to its terraination, where endless negation ends in annihila
tion ; but in doing this we have fulfilled the sad duty of
shewing whither a philosophy, torn loose frora the heart of
God, must lead. There is soraething quite peculiar about the
HegeUan philosophy. No one protested raore than Hegel
against a mode of thinking which, without viewing the thinga
as they are, phUosophizes merely frora certain presuppositions,
he has well designated this mode of thinking the abstract and
opposed to it the concrete. He very properly demanded, that
thought should raaster the world and its phenoraena even to
their deepest roots, that it should sound things to thefr
utraost depths, and shoiUd coraprehend Ufe in its freshness

HEGEL AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 373
and vigour. By doing this he has given the human mind a
great task to perform, and spared philosophers a number of
erroneous paths. And on this account we will recognize in
aU its greatness and iraportance this merit of the Hegelian
philosophy, that it called the mind, frora its ideal dreams, back
to reaUty. But it raust appear stranger on this very account,
that the great raass of Hegelians fell into the very error
which the raaster wanted to avoid ; for it is not easy for '
philosophy to appear raore abstract and arbitrary, than in the '
raouths of the haughty adrairers of this system. No other
has been raore riveted and spellbound in a spiritless raechan
ism, than this which is continually speaking of spirit; none
has more fully denied life as it is, and none is raore guilty
of raaking just what it pleases of things, than this philosophy
in these hands; none can play raore deceitfully with words,
none wipes away raore fully the fragrance and lustre of reality,
none so volatUizes the personal, actual, individual life, which
it regards raerely as a fieeting shadow, as a subsiding wave,
as the "vanishing property" of things: hence, before it van
ishes also huraan personality in history, as the personality of
God in the Universe.
We do not want any one to take this as a judgraent in
reference to Hegel's philosophy, as the founder hiraself viewed
it. We speak of those who have unfortunately applied its
real or supposed results to a destructive theology. Even,
then, if Hegelianisra raay be regarded as a giant's sword,
which in the hands of a hero can cause many wounds, and
may also sustain many vaUant attacks vrith honour ; still in
the hands of the children of our tiraes, it is a sword with
which rauch evil wiU be effected.
We will not atterapt to decide whether the worthy men >^
of the so-caUed right side vriU succeed in wresting the sword
frora those of the left, and then wield it so as to gain for its
master and itself tbe victorious wreath. Nor is it clear to
us what Schelling wiU put in place of his old systera, which
at one time opened the way for Hegel. In the raean time, it
is our comfort tbat the destiny of religion, of the Church, of
theology, yea, the destiny of Christianity and Protestantism,,
is not dependent on the course of this or that school of philo
sophy, not on the victory of one or the other systera ; but

374 HEGEL AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
that living powers are concerned in the raatter, of which our
philosophy, even the latest, does not dreara, — powers which
God himself placed in the religious nature of raan, which He
awakened and called out by the Spfrit of Christ, which He
has preserved in His Church, and which He has renewed and
increased in extraordinary tiraes, as in the Reforraation.
These vital powers philosophy raay try to coraprehend ; but
it can never produce. By inquiring we shall discover tbat
Protestantism is not in so bad a condition as a glance at the
results of tbe latest philosophy and criticisra has indicated.
If, before we turn our attention to practical life, we remain
in the scientific, yea, philosophical departraent a few moments,,
we must say, if we do not listen to one party only, that there
is still faith, and an energetic faith, indeed, to which the
acquisition of knowledge is a raatter of earnest endeavour.
By the side of the Hegelian philosophy another has always
sustained itself, which we may call the phUosophy of the
personal God, and which will not lack followers, whether it
places itself in the line of the great historical developraent,
and leads Hegel beyond himself (frora pantheisra to theism),
or turning away frora Hegel, pursues its own course. One
thing is certain, that the speculative tendency of raodern
tiraes has, with all its degeneracy, the merit that it necessi
tates the raind to descend to the depths of knowledge. A
superficial reasoning, as it was still possible under the name
of philosophy thirty, forty years ago, has now becorae im-
fiossible. The essence of things is being raore and more
penetrated. Subjective opinion and liking, the following of
whimsical notions from a prejudicial stand-point, can no more
prevail against the enlarged views to which our age is accus
tomed. The stiff, awkward raanner of forraer poleraics has
raade roora for quick dialectics, which instead of insisting on
its proposition with obstinacy, studies the opinion of an
opponent, and instead of striking it down frora the outside,
rather seeks to refute it from its own inner construction, after
it has thoroughly exarained and penetrated it. Even if the
desolations which the so-called left side of the speculative
school occasions in ecclesiastical, political, and raoral lffe are
greater and sink deeper than the negative effects of Ration
alisra, stUl the dull and shaUow mode of thinking, which at

HEGEL AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 375
one time claimed to be the only rational one, can no more
prevail. Even those who boldly assert that reUgion and
Christianity have been superseded by the cultivation of
modern times, speak raore favourably and raore reasonably of
forraer religious conditions than the " lUurainati " of those
times. They at least adrait, that what they consider unsatis
factory for our tirae was rauch and all to another tirae, yea,
that there it had its fuU historical right. They acknow
ledge the merits of the old theologians of the middle ages, of
Luther and his tirae, of Mysticisra and Pietisra, even if they
deny these appearances the right of lasting for ever. In our
day nature and art, history and politics are also viewed from
a more intellectual point of view, vrith eyes more alive than
forraerly. Language itseff has gained rauch, and with it the fulness
of thought has increased. It must, it is true, also have aided
in covering many weaknesses and in gilding over much which
cannot stand the test of examination ; and as Schiller once
said that language makes poetry for us, so now it might be
said, that it philosophizes for us. Now, no one wants it to
be said of him, that be speaks of things he has not fathoraed,
that owing to contracted views he sees but one side ; and
even if there is much that is superficial and doubtful, stUl
every one wants to save the appearance of depth, whUe
forraerly people boasted of ignorance as well as insolence.
But there is more than an appearance of profoundness even
among those who take the lead in the negative movement.
In a word, education has become too general for individuals
to distract the multitude vrith transient imaginations and
dreams, and to check the course of investigation. Study and
labour is now requfred of every one, be he friend or foe. Who
ever desires to build up or tear down raust give himseff some
trouble ; he must command respect from his opponent by
knowledge, and must prove his fitness, otherwise be is not
permitted to enter the dispute. Every one acquainted vrith
the course of modem theology wiU agree with me, that raore
is required of a young candidate in our day than twenty or
thirty years ago. WhUe the earlier of Rationalism^ had de-
1 Xhe later Rationalism (after Kant) differs favourably from the earlier by
positive learhing. The later was, however, frequently dead and useless, which
Hegel not unjustly charged it with.

376 HEGEL AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
creased the araount that was to be learned from the Bible,
Church history, and dograatics, because it regarded this ap
paratus as superficial, and thought that all raight be deduced
from reason, and at best a few passages frora the Bible as
starting points ; and whUe an erring Pietism interpreted the
words, "To love Christ is better than all knowledge," in
favour of ignorance ; the science of our day, whatever theolo
gical views it may favour, demands a solid, exegetical, histori
cal, and philosophical education. The theologian is expected
to know everything that pertains to his departraent, to trace
it to its historical origin and to know how to resolve it into
its constituent eleraents. WhUe the forraer interpreters of
Scripture of both parties raade the raistake, that they only
sought for their own opinions in the Bible, and shewed their
skiU in twisting a passage so as to suit their own system,
raodern theological science has freed itself frora this objection
able use of Scripture, and airas at an explanation as inde
pendent as possible frora personal opinions. Thu.s, for instance,
the natural explanation of rairacles has lost its ground for
ever, and Strauss has done the most to represent it in its
entire ridiculousness and absurdity, and to make its revivifi
cation irapossible. The study of the Bible has not only in
creased in irapartiality, but in activity and interest vrithin
the last ten years. How different the explanation of an
epistle of Paul, how different the interpretation of the gospel
of John in the universities now frora what it was twenty-five
years ago ! Since that time there has been an activity in the
investigation of the Scriptures and an emulation which, with
aU its raistakes, can only fill us with joy. The desire is no
longer raerely to explain raeagrely the written letter, but to
penetrate the inmost souls of the authors of the Bible, and to
learn to imderstand thera from these depths. The irapulse
which Herder had given raore than half a century ago to
this raatter now first began to be generally felt, and vrith
more effect, since the other raeans of interpretation had in
creased and been purified since that tirae.'^
WhUe at the time of the "illurainisra" Church history
' The same was the case in languages and the studies of antiquity. Creuzer's
" Symbolik " introduced quite another view of the mythological, to say nothing
of the great reform brought into philology by F. A. Wolf.

HEGEL AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 377
was regarded as a history of human folly, as a coUection of
singular anecdotes for the arauseraent of enlightened minds,
now the breathing and moving of the Christian spirit again
began to be observed in various periods ; persons, too, began
to perceive a life behind these forms which had becorae
strange to us — a life which ought not to be strange to us. At
first persons were startled when Neander declared the task ofthe
Church historian to be, " to represent the history of the Church
of Christ as a speaking proof of the divine power of Christi
anity, as a school of Christian experience, a voice of edifica
tion resounding through all ages, of instruction, of warning
for aU who are wilUng to hear." Though this language was
called pietistic, still the raethod of vdevring the subject
adopted by Neander and others siraUar to it, soon gained the
ascendency. Men were tired of abstract generalities. In
explaining history, the concrete was again desired, the living,
the coloured, the fragrant. With a predilection beyond all
precedent the attention was again turned to the particulars
in historical studies ; raen loved to give the lives of distin
guished men, of erainent lights of the Church, with unbiassed
judgraent, and thefr mode of thinking, their inclinations, and
even their weaknesses were studied. Men placed themselves
in the spirit of the age in which they lived ; instead of a dry
nanation of facts carae a life-like representation, in which
light and shade were properly distributed, as in a good pic
ture. An interest was again taken in the monuments of
Christian art and manners ; in church buildings raore was to
be seen asain than a raere mass of stones ; and as the taste
for the symboUcal again began to develop, a meaning began
to be perceived behind the dogmas of the Church, where
formerly nothing but nonsense bad been discovered. Men
began to turn their attention especially to the ancient hymns
of the Church, and while in the last twenty years of the pre
vious century men seeraed to have nothing better to do than
to put rhyraing prose in the place of poetry, about the
thirtieth year of this century a great dissatisfaction with what
that period had produced manifested itself, and since then
has contfriuaUy increased. Whoever wiU corapare the ira
proveraents in the byran-books made in our tirae with those
of the last twenty years of last century, will clearly perceive

378 HEGEL AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
that a different spirit breathes in thera. Preaching, too, was
different. The stiff, logical conformity to rules, which was
still esteeraed above all other methods of sermonizing at the
time of Reinhard, had to give place to a greater variety of
forras, a freer effusion. The raost different methods of preach
ing appeared side by side. ^Miile Schleierraacher unfolded,
in a closely connected succession of thoughts, the deepest views
of Christian life for the educated with a peculiar art of speech,
Draeseke overpowered vrith his bold figures and flashes of
thought, and others mov^ed the masses turned aside from God,
by sermons on repentance. . . . Harras' bold require
raent, in opposition to the subjection to rules, was : " We
must speak with tongues." With this striving after originality,
rauch embellishraent, rauch exaggeration and untruth may
have been connected (as is the case with the highly gifted F.
Kruraraacher, and raany other preachers of late years), still it
cannot be denied that the progress which the German lan
guage has made through its poets, had beneflcial effects on
pulpit eloquence.
With all the complaints of the neglect of the church and
church-affairs in this age, the churches in the large cities,
which were empty at the time of the revolution and of the
French iraperial reign, were filled at a later period, and with
persons of the higher and educated classes. Thus we find in
the last ten years a Uvely interest in ecclesiastical Iff?,
Divine worship, and the constitution of the Church, instead of
the forraer neglect. Schleierraacher did his share in bringing
about this result. While at the time of Rationalisra the
attendance at church was regarded raerely as respect for the
preacher, since all the rest, singing, prayer, and sacrament,
were considered mere secondary matters, intended for the
weak ouly, yea, while persons freely acknowledged that the
educated attended church only for the sake of the example,
and while even rainisters dared to recoraraend the attendance
only on this account : now persons found that man has other
wants than raerely to instruct or divert himseff, that he
needs edification for his soul, for the welfare of his own inner
life, and that this finds its deep support and liring expres
sion only in the congregation of believers. Even Hegel him
self caUed divine worship the highest art of the human spirit.

HEGEL AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 379
which the disciples of the left side of course refer to the wor
ship of their genius. In reference to the constitution of tbe
Church and its external affairs, the interest was not only
awakened araong the ministry but also araong the laity.
While during the period of Rationalisra the territorial system
was the prevailing one, that system by which the affairs of
the Church carae under the authority of the State, just as the
affairs of justice, of police and finance, because rainisters were
to a certain degree expected to be used as raoral police
officers, as ciril officers of public morality : now again it was
remerabered, that Christ did not found His Church in conse
quence of a govemment order proceeding frora the Eraperor
Augustus or King Herod, and that His apostles did not
preach on account of the governraent, however rauch they
tausht obedience to it, but that tiU the time of Constantine
the Church stood free, ordered its own affairs, aiid relied on
no other power but that of the Holy Spirit, the original vital
power of the Church. Persons looked to North America,
where the Church developes itself freely, without being sup
ported or hindered by the State. Others objected against
this, and not unjustly, that the tiraes had changed, that it
belonged to Christianity, not to reraain one sect or to be
divided into raany, as is the case in North Araerica, but
rather to penetrate with its livdng breath the life of the State
and people, and that therefore a free activity of the Church
in the State was certainly raore advantageous to both than
the forcible and unnatural separation of the two. Indeed,
the Christian state (quite different frora the State-Police-
Church), was designated by the HegeUan phUosophy as the
only rational, only real state. Although opinions differ on
this subject even in our day, stiU the fact that raany reflected
on the relation of Church and State, and thought the raatter
worthy of their consideration, is an iraportant and cheering
indication. But men did not stop with theories. In different
parts of Germany a path was opened for ecclesiastical life, by
the establishment and regulation of Synods. This was the
case in the Rhine-provinces of Prassia and in Baden ; and in
other countries attempts at least were made to promote con
gregational life in tbe Church by means of Church-discipline

380 HEGEL AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
and Church-officers. In this matter, too, Schleiermaeher
took the lead with his regulating mind.
But not only in the ecclesiastical department, so far as
this is bounded by certain visible liraits, but in the great
departraent of Christian Ufe and activity, in that which, in
opposition to aU huraan liraitation, we call the kingdom of
God, we notice in the last ten years a great activity and
movement, a devotion to the cause of Christ, such as we flnd
nowhere else in the entire history of Protestantism, from the
Reformation till the present tirae. While forraerly (with few
exceptions) it seemed to be reserved for Pietism, Methodism,
and Moravians to carry on missions among the heathens, to
spread the Bible and Christian knowledge among the people,
to erect Christian institutions of charity and those for the
training of the young, and while then in opposition to these
efforts phUanthropy attempted soraething sirailar frora its
own standpoint, we flnd that now the truly Christian spirit,
which is both divine and huraan, atterapts continually to
effect a practical union of hearts, where it was utterly irapos
sible to do this on the basis of the written letter. Thus the
Missionary and Bible Societies, which first becarae native to
the European continent since the second decade of this cen
tury, have actually accoraplished that union,^ about which
raen had so long racked their brains ; thus raen of very
difi'erent views and opinions have assisted each other in per
forraing Christian works of love, uniting our evangelical
basis. The Christian and philanthropic, who at first were
hostile, approached each other. Let raen, if they choose, say
that this wide-spread and continually increasing activity is
pietistic, and based on pietistic principles ; yet it raust at
least be acknowledged, that Pietism in our day is still a
power whicii makes itself felt, and which will not soon with
draw to give the field to liberalism, coramunisra, &c. ; it raust
be acknowledged, that the positive power of Protestantism
still raatches the negative, even if we cannot suppress the
wish, that a still raore decided and raore general understand
ing raight be accoraplished between those who desire the
' This commendation, we are sorry to say, must again be limited at this
time, in which blind indiscretion, adhering so tenaciously to its confession of
faith, threatens to destroy the beautiful harmony.

THE EISE OF THE PEOTESTANT SPIRIT. 881
advanceraent of both the good and the true of Protestantisra,
its light and its power. It wUl not do to give up hope or
to fold the hands in discourageraent, however glooray the
prospect may occasionaUy be. Very fortunately, too, that
which excites attention among the learned and appears in a
systematic form, is not always what holds and supports the
Church ; it is the Spirit that bloweth how and where it listeth,
who prepares his instruraents in a thousand different ways, that
Spirit, who often appears raost powerful in those who appear
weak in the eyes of the world. It will not do to forget that
the power of faith, as it lived in a Luther, has often raani
fested itself in a quiet, hurable sphere of activity, and has
borne -vritness of the nature of the evangeUcal Spirit.

XXIV.
THE RISE OF THE PROTESTANT SPIRIT IN THE
ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH DURING THE PAST
AND THE PRESENT CENTURIES.
QUESNEL-^THE APPELLANTS AND THE CONVULSIONISTS 
THE JESUITS IN PARAGUAY  DISBANDING OF THEORDER
 GANGANELLI  THE ILLUMINATI  JOSEPH U. AND HIS
EEFOEMS  THE FEENCH EEVOLUTION  THE THEOPHILAN-
THEOPISTS  BUONAPAETE AND THE PAPAL AGEEEMENT 
ST. MARTIN AND CHATEAUBEIAND  NAPOLEON's TREAT
MENT OF PIUS VIL  NEW AGREEMENTS WITH THE POPE 
THE RESTORATION OF THE BOURBONS  RE-ESTABLISHMENT
OF THE JESUITS  LAMENNAIS  GERMAN CATHOLICISM AND
ITS REPRESENTATIVES  RELATION OF CATHOLICISM TO PRO
TESTANTISM AT THE MOST RECENT PERIOD  GLANCES INTO
THE FUTURE  CONCLUSION.
To make the picture complete which we have drawn of the
rise and growth of Protestantism in the present and during
the past century, we must touch in outUne the changes in
the CathoUc Church, in order to show how tendencies towards

382 THE RISE OF THE PEOTESTANT SPIEIT.
a reform have been developing vrithin it, and how Protestantism
has exerted power even in that Church. Even before the
last century, it was plain that since the great Reformation
there have not been lacking in the Catholic Church efforts to
correct the abuses which have crept into her, to set liraits to
the Papal authority, to reforra the cloister life, to proraote
better education among the people, to raake the services of
pubUc worship more conformable to the changed conditions of
society, and through the introduction of a raore rigid moral
discipline, to recover that respect for the Church and its
institutions which has been in gi-eat raeasure lost through
the degeneracies of earUer days. With this tendency was
united another, viz., to check the expansive power of Protes
tantisra, to disallow the rise of free thought and the utter
ance of reforraatory ideas within the Catholic Church, to put
new props under a falling hierarchy, and, whenever possible,
to enlarge the circle of true believers. But during the
eighteenth century not only was the Papal dignity exposed
to raany and severe assaults, but the order of Jesuits,
who had before been all-powerful, were also shorn of their old
strength. Going back to the beginning of the eighteenth
century, we find Jesuitisra struggling fiercely with Jansenism,
the adherents to the forraer leaning rather to the Pope, the
adherents of the latter leaning rather to the reformers. This
controversy acquired new vigour at the appearance of a devo
tional book much prized by the Jansenists. This was the
New Testament -with explanatory notes in a strongly evan
gelical view, and thoroughly favouring the doctrine of justifi
cation by faith instead of works. The author of this work,
Paschasius Quesnel, was a Jansenist, driven out of France, and
residing in the Netherlands. The Pope then ruUng, Clement
XL, put a hundred and one passages of this work under
the ban, stigmatising thera as heretical, dangerous, and offen
sive to pious ears ; and yet among the condemned passages
are sorae which were quoted literally not only from the
Scriptures, but also from the Fathers, and particularly from
Saint Augustine. This roused the French clergy, and the
Bishop of Paris, Cardinal NoaUles, opposed the acceptance of
the Papal bull of condemnation. Those who sided with the
Cardinal were styled AppeUants. They had a long struggle

THE EISE OF THE PEOTESTANT SPIEIT. 383
with the court, which more from state poUcy than from
religious principle stood by the Pope. When Louis XV.
ascended the throne, the adoption of the Papal bull was
earnestly contended against, yet it in the end gained the day.
One of the Appellants, a Parisian deacon, who afterwards took
the name of St. Francis of Paris, had defended hiraself even to
death for the sake of Jansenisra, and was buried in the
churchyard of St. Medard. A crowd of people flocked to
his grave, at which mfracles began to occur, and many sick
persons who lay down upon it were healed at once of severe
diseases. It was all in vain that the Archbishop of Sens
declared that the mfracles were false : the people declared that
they were true. SiraUar occurrences took place in the churches,
until the king was obliged to close thera, and then the mani
festations were confined to the private houses of the Convul
sionists, as they were caUed. After a while the affair died
away ; and as Voltaire said later, the grave of St. Francis of
Paris became the grave also of Jansenisra.
The Jesuits carae off conquerors frora this field, but unex
pected difficulties lay in their path. Though they were
rictorious in the affairs of religious faith, yet their worldly
power was soon to meet a deterrained adversary. On the
shores of Paraguay and Uraguay in South Araerica, a state
had been openly founded, in which the Jesuits had uncon
trolled sway. All the avenues of approach were through
fortifications which the order had constructed. But when a
treaty, concluded between Spain and Portugal in 1750, had
given a part of Paraguay to the latter country, the savage
natives in 1753 denied the Portuguese access to the country.
The Jesuits were regarded as the cause of this act, and the
Portuguese minister Carvalho, Marquis of Pombal, deterrained
on their downfall. A murderous attack on the king of Por
tugal awakened the suspicion that this order was accessory to
the deed. A forraal charge of high treason was preferred
against the Jesuits, and by a decree of the third of Septeraber,
1759, they were driven from Portugal, and their return for
bidden under pain of death. The order had received a
powerful blow which passed through its whole ranks Uke an
electrical shock. In France their polity was subjected to a
thorouo-h investigation, and the body was disbanded in the

384 THE EISE OF THE PEOTESTANT SPIRIT.
spring of 1764. Notvrithstanding a bull of Pope Clement
XIIL, declaring the sanctity of the Order of Jesus, the Jesuits
were speedily driven from Spain and Naples and all the
dominions of the Bourbons. Indeed, the raonarchs of this
faraUy exerted so rauch influence over the successor of Cle
raent XIIL, the sceptical Ganganelli, Pope Cleraent XIV., as
to induce him to issue in 1773 the faraous bull, Dorainus a
rederapter noster, and to dissolve the order. The advent of
this Pope and his decisive action in disbanding the Jesuits
are significant facts in the history of Catholic Protestantism.
It is curious to observe how the upheaving of events and the
general ferment of those tiraes, from which not even the
Catholic Church reraained free, affected even the head of the
hierarchy, and caused the name of a pope to appear on the
list of reforraers.
Antonio Ganganelli was the son of a physician : he had been
educated as a Franciscan, and had awakened great expecta
tions. Already under Benedict XIV. he had attained to much
consideration, Cleraent XIII. gave hira the cardinal's hat, and
in 1769 he saw hiraseff in the chair of St. Peter, after the
opponents of the Jesuits had assured theraselves of his co
operation. In the days of Gregory VII. it was the policy of
the papal power to hurailiate aU worldly potentates, and give
them a place at his feet, but GanganeUi understood the temper
<)f his times, and saw that his first care raust be to be on good
terras vrith the kings : he therefore took aU pains to re-estab
lish peace where it was disturbed ; and in order not to vex
the Protestants, he oraitted on Green Thursday that passage
in the coraraunion service conderaning heretics. But he well
knew the danger of breaking up the Order of Jesuits ; in
signing the bull for their disbanding, he signed his own death
wanant, for soon after there followed, a nurabness of his limbs,
which was ascribed to the poison of Jesuits. He died in
1774. When we look with unprejudiced eyes at the efforts of the
Portuguese rainister and of tbe Bourbon courts, to overthrow
the Jesuits, the issue raay seera to us a great gain ; but our
joy would have been less alloyed, had those efforts been less
tyrannical in their nature, and one kind of despotism not been
exchanged for another. It is a strilsing proof of tfee yftriety

THE RISE OF THE PEOTESTANT SPIEIT. 385
in the ideas of tolerance prevalent in the eighteenth century,
that Frederick the Great, who stood at the head of the great
sceptical movement of the tirae, gave the Jesuits a horae in
SUesia when they had been driven from aU CathoUc countries,
and that Catherine II. of Russia granted them entrance to
Poland. Yet in Catholic countries, especiaUy in Bavaria, the
influence of the Order was perpetuated, mainly by those who
had been compelled to openly abjure their faith, but who were
secretly true to it, and all the more dangerous. But Germany
became the centre of the struggle, and, as it had been for Pro
testantisra, the arena of the strife.
In Germany also the Jesuits had exercised a wide influence :
public instruction was alraost completely in their hands, and
German courts, like that of Vienna at the time of Maria
Theresa, those of Bavaria, and of the Palatinate in special,
were wholly in their control. But about the same tirae that
the Jesuits were driven frora South Araerica, the day began
to dawn in Gei-raany, first in matters of science and then in
ecclesiastical matters, more especiaUy as to the relation of the
German Catholic Church and its clergy to Rome. The voices
which at the time of the great Reformation were raised in
favour of an independence of Rome, now came from the clergy
itseff. A prelate of high rank, the Archbishop of Treves, had,
as early as when Clement XIII. sat in the papal chair (1765),
pubUshed a work under the assumed narae of Justinus Fe-
bronius, in which he asserted the ancient rights of the bishop
in contrast to those of the pope, and pleaded for a return of
the independent German Catholic Church, as it existed before
the Council of Trent ; a work which the friends of the hier
archy and the Jesuits raost of all, were specially bitter against,
and whose author was at last corapeUed to retract, when the
influence which it had exerted upon the whole Catholic world
could not be recaUed. And in the other departments of theo
logical science there were constantly raanffested the proofs of
the influence of the sceptical Uterature of Protestant countries,
great as was the deraand for that literature, even among the
CathoUc clergy.
Some sought to influence the youth through better school
books, some by a freer method of study ; and some of the
results of protestant criticism were carried from Gottingen to
2 B

386 THE EISE OF THE PROTESTANT SPIRIT.
Mayence ; but efforts were raade at once to correct aU these
unfavourable moveraents. The friends of scepticisra did not
dare to publicly proclaira themselves, and there was nothing
left to them but to work just as much in the dark as their
opponents, and to found an Order which, in its administration
and econoray, should have rauch in coramon with the Jesuits,
while it should secretly be in entire antagonism with them.
This was the noted Order of lUurainati, whose founder, Adam
Weishaupt, a professor of law in Ingolstadt, had been a protege
of the Jesuits. Into the dark divisions of this Order, their
relation to the Freeraasons and their final fate, we do not need
to enter. We only wish to caU attention to the strange blend
ing of scepticisra and mysticism in those tiraes, for in the
sarae epoch when sorae were shattering the very foundations
of the Catholic faith, others were testifying to miracles in
their raidst, and were even drawing Protestants into their
circles. Araong the Catholics, as araong the Protestants, the various
grades of religionists are here in union, there in dfrect anta
gonisra. ParaUel with the tendency to raore freedora of
thought (not so marked indeed in the Roraish Church as in
its rival), there was also a tendency to a veiled mysticism,
similar to that of Claudius, StUling, Lavater, and other pro
testants : to a faith, in othcr words, which appeals to the pious
feeUngs, and which, resting on the basis of an inward spiritu
ality, set aside a dead orthodoxy with just as Uttle corapunc-
tion as a one-sided infideUty. As an exaraple of this tendency
we raight cite the noble Michael Sailer, the friend of Lavater.
Before we trace these developraents in Catholicisra further,
we ought to speak of a raonarch, who was, in a certain sense,
to the Catholic Church what Frederick the Great was to the
Protestant Church. Joseph Second had been frora 1765
regent with his raother Maria Theresa, but at 1780, as Em
peror of Gerraany, we see hira enter with eager interest into
the great sceptical raoveraents of his country. His plan, shared
by his rainister Kaunitz, was to render the Gerraan Catholic
Church as independent of Rorae as possible, and to estabhsh
an enlightened order of priesthood within this independent
Church, which, reraoved frora Jesuitical and raonkish influ
ence, should diffuse a reasonable religion among the people.

THE RISE OF THE PEOTESTANT SPIEIT. 387
and vriden the culture of the youth. To accoraplish this, he
forbade the carrying out of any papal orders vrithout his pre
rious assent to thera, broke up the intimacy between the
monks and foreigners of influence, destroyed many cloisters,
and gave their revenues to parishes, schools, and serainaries,
which were established according to his ideas. He introduced
many measures to simplify public worship, hyrans were cora
posed in Gerraan, and Bibles printed in the sarae tongue and
vrithout the Romish running coraraentary. In vain did the
Archbishop of Vienna, first an opponent and then a fnend of
the Jesuits, strive to induce him to stop in his course. The
pope, Pius Sixth, whom the altered times did not permit to
summon defected princes to his threshold, was compelled, after
aU letters missive had faded, to take the extrerae step of
makrag a journey hiraself to Vienna. This was in 1 782.
Venerable and yet noble and coramanding in aspect, eloquent,
and with a sweet toned voice, he was coraplacent enough to
suppose that he could make sorae irapression on the eraperor.
But he gained nothing raore than a very respectful treatment,
and the certainty that although he had raade an iraposing
effect upon the crowd to which he gave his blessing, he had
not succeeded in saving a single one of the cloisters whose
doora had been written. StiU we must confess that the em
peror did not succeed in imposing durability on his reforras.
We have not the space to enter on a thorough inquiry into
the system of reformation adopted by Joseph, although such
a reriew would disclose ideas at the foundation not unUlce
that on which Luther builded. Yet we have gone far enough
already to draw the lesson, tbat there was altogether too much
reform atterapted on a raere theory, without reference to the
conditions and the demands of the tiraes, and that zeal was
most truly effective when joined with an appreciation of the
proper moraent to strike a blow.
The most important event in the German Catholic church
during Joseph's reign was the conference of the electors and
archbishops of Mayence, Treves, Cologne, and Salzburg, at
Ems in the sumraer of 1786, having as its object the bidding
defiance to the Rorahsh nuncio at Munich, and the estabUsh
ing of the German bishoprics on a basis independent of Rome.
But the work which they began failed in consequence of the

SSS THE RISE OF THE PROTESTANT SPIRIT.
obstinacy of the bishops, who more wiUingly obeyed their
distant authority than that so near them, and they clung the
raore tenaciously to the papal chair.
But had Joseph the Second sought in vain to impose a
reforra upon the CathoUc Church in accordance with the idea
ofthe eighteenth century, the French Revolution which now
broke out, threatened to put an end not only to the priest
hood and the hierarchy, but to the church in e-V^ery form.
The extrerae depression of the Catholic Church, its property
proclairaed as t'ne property of the nation, its priests corapelled
to swear allegiance to the citizens' constitution, or to flee the
land, and the breaking up of the papal power, are hardly to
be spoken of in connection with those extrerae revolutionary
dograas which came in vogue during the reign of terror. And
there seems to be a visible chain of events in the course of
history, in that the very nation which had poured out
the blood of the Huguenots as water, ostensibly for the
Saviour's sake, now sought to obliterate aU traces of Christian
ity, even to the reckoning of time, and that priests who under
other circumstances would have lent their hands to the murder
of Protestants, now out of fear, forswore as iraposture the
very faith which they had professed. In the very cemeteries
where they had professed to vritness rairacles, they recorded
Death is an eternal sleep ; and the very deification of reason
becarae a therae for draraatic blaspheray. After the per
sonality of God had been fiippantly disowned, the National
Convention, at the instigation of Robespiene, decreed a belief
in a Suprerae existence, and in the iraraortality of the soul,
and the eighth of July was consecrated as a national festival,
to celebrate the honours of this new God, and was kept as
only Frenchmen can. The only trace of the old Catholic faith
to be seen in this was that the raodern reUgion was decreed
by law, Robespiene taking the place of the Pope. Very
soon in 1795, universal freedora of belief, and a tolerance of
all beUefs was granted, and it was seen at once that neither
Christianity nor Catholicisra in its ancient forra had been
driven out of the hearts of the people. The raasses pressed
into the churches, and new anxieties arose araong the civU
authorities, lest vrith the revival of love of the old faith, there
should be a revival of a desfre to have a king again. Deism

TUE RISE OF THE PROTESTANT SPIRIT. 389
too began to seek uniformity in the expression of its convic
tions. Every element of Christian doctrine had been brought
into discredit through deistical writings, and yet men could
not rid themselves of a belief in the eternal. A new religion
must be organised, and a service raust be instituted for the
edification of the educated classes. The foundation was laid
in the year 1796 by five gentlemen, all heads of farailies, who
designated theraselves Theophilanthropists, and raet every
week for prayer and moral conversation, and singing songs to
the glory of God. Soon their number was increased, and in
1798 Reveillere Lepaux becarae the leader of the organization.
The Directory of Paris assigned ten churches to the new
order, and the novel raethod of worship extended itself widely,
as far even as the provinces. And what was the substance
of the faith of the Theophilanthropists ? Their doctrine was
limited to a belief in the existence of God, as an exalted
ruler of the earth, and in the iraraortality of the soul. These
two lofty conceptions forraed the staple of their hyrans and
their harangues, all else was confined to a dry and general
morality, whose highest goal was to teach how to be useful
to one's native land. A siraple altar on which flowers
and fraits were laid in their season as thankofferings, and
a platforra for the speaker, were the central features of
the place of worship. The waUs were decorated with
inscriptions like the foUowing : — ChUdren obey your parents,
and honour your elders — Fathers and mothers instruct
your chUdren— Husbands and wives be mutuaUy devoted to
each other. In the place of the traditional festivals of the
Church new ones were ordained, conformed to the seasons ofthe
year; in the place of the sacraments, arbitrary and sentimental
cereraonies, and so, too, at the birth of children, at the taking
in of new raembers, at the celebration of marriage, at the dis
tribution of prizes to chUdren, and at funerals. It was ira
possible to avoid absolutely the adoption of Christian rites,
although they were flrst robbed of tbeir old significance. But
this, instead of giving new value to tbe novel service, imparted
to it a kind of unnaturalness which made its barrenness the
more apparent, and showed that it could no more satisfy the
wants of men for any length of tirae than distiUed water
could take the place of wine in supplying the needs of an

390 THE RISE OF THE PROTESTANT SPIRIT.
empty stomach. The real activity of the order ceased in five
years, and in 1802 their places of meeting were taken away
frora thera. With Bonaparte's Consulship a new order of
things in French Catholicisra supervened. Men were con
vinced again, as if awaking frora a dream, of the need of
certain established religious dograas and forras for the people,
aud so, as a work of political necessity, a corapact was entered
into in the year 1801 between Napoleon and the Pope,
through the instruraentality of the diplomatic Consalvi. And
as tiraes of the greatest anxiety and distress have always
drawn some souls back to the depth of religious feeling, so
even during the reign of terror in France, Catholic raysticism
throve on the recollections of a glorious past, and in the per
son of Saint Martin rose frora its ashes, baptized in a new
glow of devotion. The writer who has had the skiU to awaken
the interest of the reading world in the life of Zinzendorf,
Varnhagen von Ense, has preserved for us some remembrances
of these modern raystics, as well as of his relation to the
Duchess of Bourbon, aunt of Louis Philippe, and has weU
characterized this manifestation of reUgiousness as "a bene
ficent fiame, which in hurable and lowly places reveals the
brightest geras." " It is," he says, " like all the purest spiritual
life in the Catholic Church, really half Protestant, although
not deserting its old forra, and putting on a new one." Less
deeply than St. Martin worked Chateaubriand, through his
work entitled "The Genius of Christianity," an apology for
the old romantic CathoUcism, and by his " Attala," the " Mar
tyrs," and other writings, in which the glowing style is raore
reraarkable than the clearness and the thoroughness of his
judgraent. But, raost singularly, the effort of Chateaubriand
to coramend Christianity on the esthetical side harraonizes
strangely with the efforts of Gerraan Protestants of the ro
mantic school.
The truce between the Pope and the Eraperor did not last
long. Napoleon did indeed go so far in order to sanction his
newly assuraed iraperatorial dignity in the eyes of the people
as to be crowned by the Pope in 1804 ; but he showed how
rauch his heart was in the matter by issuing, on his own
responsibiUty, a Catechism for the youth of the empfre, in
which he accepted the decisions of the Council of Trent in-

THE RISE OF THE PROTESTANT SPIRIT. 391
deed, but also inserted as a prirae dograa of the true faith,
unhesitating obedience to the Eraperor. The deraand of this
unconditional obedience, plunging Pope and Eraperor into old
difficulties once more, brought around new developments.
Political legislation continuaUy clashed with the traditions of
the Church, and not in one or two points raerely, but continu
ally, particularly in matters of divorce and marriage, and the
magnates of the Church saw that the Eraperor was continually
hampering and nanowing their power. When Pius was on
the point of lending his hand to the designs of France, or
Austria and England, he saw hiraself anew treated as an eneray.
French troops took possession of Rome in February 1808, dis
banded the College of Cardinals and the Papal army, and de
prived the Pope of his worldly authority. The latter protest
ing, and resorting to the old spiritual weapon, the ban, had
to learn how tirae had blunted its edge. And the personal
worth of the Pope stands out in all the raore effective light,
in that, when thousands had forsworn allegiance to hira, he
displayed such resignation as he lay in his prison at Savona,
as to draw from his conqueror the confession that he was " a
really exceUent man, and an angel of goodness." Yet Napoleon
sought in vain to estabUsh a National Church independent of
Rome, whose central point should be Paris, and to irapose his
own Uberalisra upon Spain. The fanaticisra of the Spanish
clergy rose like a wall against his designs, and the convocation
of French, ItaUan, and Gerraan bishops, held in 1811, was
without effect. Once more, and stUl unfortunately, Napoleon
sought to make peace with the Pope : on the 23d of January,
1813, the Agreement of Fontainebleau was entered into, in
which the right of appointing bishops was taken from the
Pope, but nothing was said as to his temporal rule. This
mutual agreement was issued on an edict of the Eraperor ;
and fuU of dismay and forebodings Pius returned to Rorae, yet
he outUved the triuraph of seeing its great adversary, attacked
on every side, consent to the restoration of the States of the
Church. Napoleon's downfall followed. The Catholic Church
saw in that event as much hope of its own resurrection as the
Protestant Church did of its. The Restoration (under Louis
XVIII) re-estabUshed the papal power, and again made the
Roraan CathoUc religion the national faith of France. Even

392 THE RISE OF THE PROTESTANT SPIEIT.
the Jesuits were restored to power, and pressed back into the
countries whence they had been banished. As in the Pro
testant Church of Gerraany, hand in hand vvith a newly
awakened spiritual life appeared also a subtle hypocrisy, and
a hard spirit of intolerance, not to say persecution, so in the
Catholic Church there arose a priestly spirit which airaed
rather at the acquisition of worldly power than of adding to
God's glory. On the other hand the prevailing UberaUsm
raisunderstood and neglected the deeper needs of the soul
and the true raoral wants of the nation. And so France,
which had been one of the cradles of the Reformation, became,
after the bloody days of the Revolution, a kind of ferry-boat,
playing between the shores of unbelief and superstition, and
few wise enough to hold the rudder. Why should I dwell
longer on the strife ? The well-reraerabered July days of
1830 dashed anew to the ground the hopes of the hierarchy,
and it needed a Laraennais to reconstruct, in the " Words of a
BeUever," a political systera which should ofler a truce even
to speculative unbeUef. Sorae striking reUgious phenoraena,
like the appearance of Lacordaire, the eminent preacher of the
Atonement, and that of the elegant Abbe Chatel, drew the
curiosity of Paris, as did more worldly things. St. Siraonism
could no better sustain itself than its older brother Theophilan-
thropisra, although it strove to live again in its own child,
Coraraunisra, and to introduce itself as a new Gospel, and to
diffuse the choicest blessings araong humanity.
StiU nearer to the subject of our present thought Ues the
fate of Gerraan Catholicisra in the latest tiraes. Here again
we reach solid ground, for a far raore intiraate action and
reaction between Protestantism and Catholicism displays itself
with the Gerraans than with the French. The general
advanced state of learning with the forraer is an adrairable
preparative for an intelligent appreciation of doctrinal differ
ences. Even opponents, and decisive opponents, have a com
mon interest in science, and come to a mutual understand
ing in it by appeaUng to its general principles. I affirm with
confidence that a learned German CathoUc can sooner come
to an appreciation of the points of religious belief of a
German Protestant, and vice versd, than a German Protestant
can with a French or English brother of his own faith.

THE EISE OF THE PEOTESTANT SPIEIT. 393
Gerraan Catholics and Gerraan Protestants have irabibed
phUosophy at the same breasts, while each has converted it
into uses quite different frora the other. The Catholic theo
logy of Gerraany has run through the sarae course of develop
ment with the Protestant. Side by side in both, by a cold
and negative rationalisra has been a spiritual minded mysti
cism ; in both the critical raethod, idealism and pantheism
have had their adherents. The sarae terrainology, the sarae
speculative and dialectical studies, the sarae extent of research
we find in those who are interpreting the decisions of the
Council of Trent, which we find araong Protestants in tracing
the harmony of Scripture. Biblical criticism too, and the
study of ancient manners and customs, first awakened at the
great Reformation, were largely prosecuted among Catholic
schools, and the Protestant received instruction from the
hps of Hug and Jahn, of Mohler and Frantz Baader, while
the CathoUc learned of Schleierraacher, of Liicke and Neander.
There was sorae crossing of swords, it is true, but it was not
a mere affair of fencing, science was advanced, and although
some passion entered of course, yet mutual regard was en
gendered, and the fire of the older polemics was quenched.
But when we institute a coraparison of the relations which
now exist between the leading spirits of both confessions,
and those which existed in the era of good feeling, the age
of Lavater and of Sailer, we have to raeet and answer this
question : ShaU we regret this change or feUcitate ourselves
upon it ? I think we must do both. A blind jealousy is
always to be regretted, alike on Protestant and on Catholic
soU; and equally pitiable is that dazzling Ulusion, which
under the pretence of calling God the eternal judge, masks
worldly desires and selfish aims with spiritual zeal or a
specious liberality ; and so fiir as we see these things, the
change is to be regretted. But we raust also congratulate
ourselves upon the altered conditions of the relations between
CathoUcs and Protestants, in consideration of the increased
weight which fixed religious convictions have in the polity of
states as well as in the forraation of indi-ridual character.
The more coraplete the renunciation of reUgion by the popular
mind, the more welcorae wiU be every expression of pious
feeling, provided only that it be sincere ; yes, welcorae vriU it

394 THE RISE OF THE PROTESTANT SPIRIT.
be, even with those sharp and rough edges, which keep it
from raelting into efferainacy ; and yet, rauch as it were to
be vrished that Catholics and Protestants could combine in all
those efforts which look to the general good of men, we have
to confess that such a combination is not to be easily effected.
But even without such a combination much can be gained, if
tbe Catholic Christian and the Protestant Christian, each
from their own stand-point, unite in their opposition to Anti-
Christ, even at the peril of being charged with forming an
aUiance between Jesuitisra and Pietisra, between ultraraon-
tane and raethodistical severity. These names are not to be
feared above all things, for they have covered all varieties of
Christian attainraent and experience. We do not deny that
there raay be extrerae views in both parties, and these ex
trerae views raay corae into hostUe colUson. But as we in
the Protestant fold have to distinguish between what is merely
a negative denying and a positive upholding of supposed
truths, between a false and a real orthodoxy, between sincere
piety and its caricature, so raust we distinguish between the
severity of ultraraontanisra, and the Catholicisra of Sailer and
Wiffenberg, between the theology of Mohler and Hirscher,
and the theology of the cloisters and of the Jesuits. Only
let Catholicisra cease talking of its unity. For where is its
boasted unity? We wish indeed that the Catholic church
may be delivered still frora the evil of perfect unity, for the
mere serablance of unity is nothing. Just as soon as spiritual
life raanifests itself, it takes various forms to express itself,
and that variety which we now detect in the Roraish church
is the very raeans of preserving it from stagnation and ruin.
Whether CathoUcisra will ever be able to exist without a
Pope, and direct dependence upon hira, whether the raarriage
of its clergy and the celebrating raass in the vernacular can be
united with the other dograas and sacraraental cereraonies of
the church, without shattering the latter ; whether we shall
ever see a Gerraan Catholic Church, a Swiss Catholic Church,
a French Catholic Church, are questions which we dare not
try to answer. We do not even know the destinies of our
Protestant Church. But we may venture upon the assertion
that the Catholic Church must no more necessarily begin ita
leformation at the same point where we began in the sixteenth

THE EISE OF THE PROTESTANT SPIRIT. 395
century, and traverse the sarae course which we have traversed
than that we must necessarily be swallowed up by Catholicisra,
or wUUngly go back to it again. We do not forget that the
Catholic Church, whether it confesses it or not, had a share
in the great Reformation, and that Protestantism has largely
helped to purify her ; nor do we deny nor refuse to acknow
ledge pubUcly that we have not gone to the end of our
Protestantism, and have many fields yet to struggle through, ,
where the experiences of our sister church wiU doubtless do
us serrice. It would be a very mechanical view if we supposed
that there were only two ways of coming to the goal, that
the Catholic church must becorae Protestant, or the Protestant
church CathoUc, one absorbing the other. Far otherwise wiU
it be. The issue will be much more simple than this. Two
powers are given to us both, the Church and the GospeL
Through the Gospel the Church is founded, and through the
Church shall the Gospel be preserved, spread abroad, and
expand into new life. But history has taught ns that under
a Church of wide and encroaching power, the Gospel has
been more and more tampered with and put out of sight, and
subjected to Romish tyranny. The Reformation of the six
teenth century restored the Gospel in its simplicity, so far
as was allowed of God ; but one Church had no share in that
Reformation, and yet there are many who ask, where is the
true EvangeUcal Church ? Where its established statutes and
forms 1 Where its visible barriers ? Where its constitution,
its unity? It is true we cannot point to any completed
church, scarcely to the outUne of such a one. But shall we
expect from without what we ought only to expect from
vrithin ? We desire an Evangelical Church, and nothing can
further our wish more than what flows from the spirit of the
Gospel, and the joyful message of Jesus and the free grace of
God. To aU that is not born of the Gospel we remain un
changeably Protestant, however proudly it may lay claira to
the CathoUc name. But inasmuch as the Gospel is to be
proclaimed to ali creatures, we also belong to the Catholic
church, that is, the feUowship of saints. If the church, which
has thus far called itself exclusively the CathoUc church, wUl
let the word " Roman " drop, wUl ask no longer what does
Rome teach, but wiU return to the Gospel ground and renew

396 THE RISE OF THE PEOTESTANT SPIRIT.
itself on this ground ; it need not traverse in a long and
painful circuit the waste places of our older protestant theology,
in order to becorae a true reformed church. God will shorten
the way for it, and then can we enter, if we vrish, that
thoroughly purified mansion, from which the popish leaven
has been wholly cast out.
But if, on the other hand, our Protestant Church will hold
fast to the one only ground which is laid down — will, with
the needful care for the negative and critical eleraents, also
cherish a positive faith, one which is not one-sided through
raere knowledge, but which is strong in the formation of
active Christian character, in its energetic working, and in
the union of faith and love, then, out of these shapeless ele
ments as they now are, God will create a body which shall
correspond to the spirit which dwells in our Protestantisra,
and the invisible Church will then find raore fit and noble
expression than ever. In pne word, the raore evangelical the
Catholic Church becoraes, and the raore church-like the Evan
gelical Church becomes, the nearer wiU both corae, only in a
change of paths, to the coramon goal of perfection. But how
vrill this be done ? Will and can the Catholic Church, so far
as we can see, ever cease to be Roraan Catholic? Will it ever
give the Bible freely to the people? On the other hand, has
the Protestant Church ground for an expectation of a speedy
and happy formation anew, and including what is now be
yond its pale ? These are questions which we can ask but
cannot answer. We vvill not absolutely affirra nor deny in
these raatters, least of aU will we expect to corapel the de
velopraents of the future to foUow our bidding, or be con
troUed by our raight. Who can conjecture, without plung
ing into raillennarial drearas, whether a truly evangelical Catho
Uc Church and a thoroughly organized Protestant Church will
ever be united and forra the world's great Church, and be
indeed one fold and one shepherd ? Sometiraes it seems to
be God's plan to allow both churches to mature side by side,
not as if one were true wheat and the other nothing but
weeds, but both guarding lest weeds spring up within it,
whether they come up of theraselves, or are transferred from
the neighbouring garden. Only let false zeal be just as far
reraoved as false liberality and indifference. Never was more

THE RISE OF THE PROTESTANT SPIEIT. 397
need of keeping strict watch upon the movements of our op
ponents than now. But raere heat, the fierce poleraics of
older tiraes, will not accoraplish our end, still less the iraita^
tion of what we conderan in our adversaries. We vriU have
no Protestant pope and no Protestant Jesuits, even if by
means of these we could be freed of the Roraish ones. Evan
gelical Protestants we wiU reraain, fast grounded on the word
which Jesus and His apostles have given to us as our ever
lasting and living basis, but free also from all human autho
rity. So far as in, us lies, we will raaintain peace with all
men, will seek no strffe, but we vrill not go out of the way in
which fealty to our Master leads us ; and we wiU always hold
ourselves ready to give an answer to every raan for the faith
that is within us. Far be it from us to say that the Spirit
of God has wholly deserted the old church. We will on the
other hand rejoice in the goodness whicii secretly ripens in
it yet, and which, if not through Rome, in spite of Rome,
finds expression. How far this has been done, they can
better deterraine than we, who stand in extemal relations
with that Church. But without wishing to deny to others
the satisfaction in which they find their joy and pride, we
must stiU thankfully confess that we have abundant reason to
see the hand of God resting in blessing on our evangelical
Church. So we wUl not see any sadness in these tiraes. Sad though
they may seem to some, it was daiker in the days of the
thfrty years' war in Germany, in the days of Charles First in
England, far darker in the days of the French Revolution.
Through all these troublous epochs Protestantism has lived,
and has raised its head in triumph above the crumbUng forra
of faUen superstition. So far frora again iraposing upon itseff
the yoke of Rorae, it bas given new life and irapulse to
CathoUcisra ; and if a new papacy has striven to rise within
its pale, it has been able to hold itself free frora bondage.
Though it sprang frora a great Reformation, it has held itseff
aloof from aU Revolution, has given to God what is God's,
and to Csesar what is Csesar's ; has cherished the state and
the family as institutions divinely ordered, and has sought to
find in both the central meaning, and to always hold it in
view. It has kept itseff free from despotism of aU shades,

398 THE EISE OF THE PEOTESTANT SPIEIT.
from the tyranny alike of Jesuits and of demagogues. Wher
ever it has wandered from its true path, God has graciously
led it back through the way of salutary discipUne, and its
history is faithfully recorded in order that we might be
warned, and taught, and encouraged, and quickened according
to our needs. And may God gi-ant to it a yet grander and
more prosperous destiny !

APPENDIX

A.
As Hagenbach gives no account of Schelling's life, we append
a short sketch of it here, for the material of which we are
partly indebted to the history of German literature by Henry
Kurtz, partly to Schwegler and other sources.
Frederic WilUam ScheUing was born at Leonberg, Wur
temberg, January 27, 1775. His mind having developed
unusuaUy early he entered the university of Tubingen in his
fifiteenth year, where he devoted himself to philology and
mjrthology, especially to Kant's phUosophy. He spent a short
tinie in the university of Leipzig, and then entered the uni
versity of Jena. While student he was on friendly relations
vrith HoelderUn and Hegel. With the latter he afterwards
carried on a friendly correspondence. The letters of Hegel
to SchelUng indicate that a warm attachment existed between
them, and that they felt theraselves united in the cause of
trath. SchelUng had at first devoted hiraself to the study of
medicine, but being attracted by the charraing lectures of
Fichte in Jena, he turned to the study of philosophy and
becarae a disciple and co-labourer of Fichte. As early as 1798
he becarae professor of philosophy, and in 1800 professor in
ordinary, as successor of Fichte, who had reraoved frora Jena.
The ideaUsm of Fichte could not, however, satisfy him long,
and he soon struck out a new course. Hegel, who had been
a warm friend of ScheUing's, now became an enthusiastic
adrafrer, adopted his system, and in connection vrith him pub
hshed the "Critical Journal of PhUosophy" at Jena. In 1803
ScheUing accepted a caU to Wurzberg, as professor of philo
sophy In 1807 he went to Munich as member of the

400 APPENDIX.
newly established acaderay of sciences. In 1808 he received
the appointraent of secretary-general in the acaderay of the
plastic arts and was ennobled. A quarrel with the president
occasioned his leaving Munich. He went to Erlangen,
where he delivered lectures on philosophy. An effort being
made to render the newly founded (] 807) university of
Munich distinguished by caUing erainent raen as professors,
he vvas appointed professor of philosophy, with the title of
privy aulic-counsellor ; and soon he becarae privy counseUor,
superior of the acaderay of sciences, and conservator of scien
tific coUections. He went to Berlin in 1841, where he had
been created raeraber of the academy of sciences, and delivered
lectures in the university, chiefly on " Philosophy and Mytho
logy" and "Revelation." He died August 20, 1854, at Ragaz
in the canton of St. GaU, Switzerland, to the bath of which
place he had gone to recover his failing health.
He becarae an author when quite young, first in 1792
at the time of his proraotion, when, in a dissertation on
the third chapter of Genesis, be gave an interesting philosophi
cal interpretation of the Mosaic account of the fall. He pub
lished no large works during the last ten years of his life, and
the publication of his later works commenced after his deatb.
They are not, however, all published yet.
Of the spirit raanifested by Schelling towards his opponents,
Kurtz says : " His .systera, vvhich his friend Hegel adopted,
met with much opposition. He was accused of irreligion and
pantheism ; he defended himself in the ' Critical Journal of
Philosophy,' often in an unworthy, insulting manner, since he
generally, instead of simply refuting the arguments of his
opponents, with haughty presumption declared that they were
not capable of following his speculations. After he had been
silent for nearly twenty years, during which time Hegel had
raade a new systera which placed all others in the background,
Schelling, in a translation of Cousin's work on French and
Gerraan philosophy, expressed hiraself, in his insolent way,
with contempt, in reference to Hegel, whom he never dared
attack openly during his life."
In the sketch given by Hagenbach, the later philosophy of
ScheUing is not at all taken into the account, and hence he
does not pretend to give an opinion of the entfre system of

APPENDIX. 401
SchelUng in its relation to Christianity. To do this is a very
difficult task, for this systera contains such various eleraents —
the abstract philosophical, the deep mystical, the romantic and
poetical, the ideaUstic and natural. We can take no one
fundaraental principle of this philosophy by which to judge of
its relation to Christianity — can find no thread which runs
through the systera to which all the parts are connected, and
which foUowed wiU lead us directly to Christianity or away
frora it ; but as Schwegler reraarks : " This systera is not a
closed, coraplete one, to which his separate writings are related
as fragraents ; but it is really like the Platonic philosophy, a
history of developraent, a series of grades of culture through
which the phUosopher hiraself passed. Instead of elaborating
the several sciences systeraaticaUy frora the standpoint of his
principle, Schelling always coraraenced at the beginning, try
ing new foundations, new standpoints, raostly (like Plato)
starting frora other phUosophies {Fichte, Spinoza, Neo-Platon-
ism, Leibnitz, Jacob Boehm, Gnosticisra), which he sought to
weave into his system in their order." Owing to this fact
ScheUing's phUosophy is divided into five periods by Schwegler.
First period : ScheUing proceeds frora Fichte. Second period :
Standpoint of distinguishing between the philosophy of nature
and of raind. Third period : The period of Spinozisra, or the
radifference of the ideal and the real. Fourth period : Mysti
cal turn of SchelUng's phUosophy, it connects itself vrith Neo-
platonism. Fifth period : Atterapts at a Theogony and Cos
mogony, according to Jacob Boehra.
Of this last period Schwegler hiraself says, a judgraent
cannot be forraed fully as yet — that must be left to the future,
when aU SchelUng's works shaU have been pubUshed, and
when the world has had tirae to exaraine and criticise.
Of ScheUing's " Positive PhUosophy of Revelation " Henry
Kurz says : " Nearly aU opinions agreed that the new philo
sophy did not meet the great expectations tbat had been
excited, and that this, like his forraer system, was in fact
only a play of the fancy, tbat it lacked internal connection
and arguments, and SchelUng, instead of proving his propo
sitions, advanced them vrith a certain anogance as the words
of a prophet, and demanded that they should be accepted
unconditionally as true." 2 c

402 APPENDIX.

B

Hao-enbach's account of Hegel is so brief that it -wUl not
be Ul-tiraed to append the foUowing abstract of his lffe from
his biography by Rosenkranz : —
"George Williara Frederic Hegel was bom in Stuttgart,
Augu.st 27th, 1770. Haring prepared hiraseff weU in the
gyranasiura of his native city, he entered the University of
Tiibingen in his eighteenth year, to study theology, with
which he soon connected phUosophy. He excited no par
ticular attention while a student. He passed the candidate's
exaraination in 1793, after which he becarae tutor in Berne,
then in Frankfort-on-the-Maine, where he reraained tiU 1800.
During this tirae he continued his studies with restless zeal.
His raind was at first occupied vrith theological investigations,
later chiefly with history and poUtics, and during the last
years of this period he tumed his attention exclusively to the
study of phUosophy, to which he deterrained to devote his
Ufe. He now went to Jena to flt hiraseff for the office of
teaching, and adopted and defended the systera of SchelUng,
with whora he had already forraed an intiraate acquaintance
in Tiibingen. Frora ScheUing's standpoint he wrote his first
sraaU work on ' The difference between Fichte's and Schel
ling's Systera of Philosophy,' in 1801, and assisted SchelUng
in editing the 'Critical Journal of Philosophy,' 1802-3. He
at first received but Uttle encouragement as academic teacher,
he was, however, made professor in ] 805. But this position
was only occupied a very short time, ovring to the unsettled
condition of poUtical matters. 'Araid the thunder of the
cannon at the battle of Jena,' Schwegler says, ' he corapleted
the " Phaenoraenologie des Geistes," his first large and inde
pendent raasterpiece, the crown of his labours in Jena.'
Frora Jena he went to Bamberg, in 1806, where he edited
for two years the ' Franconian Mercury,' which he conducted
in the spfrit and for the interest of the government of Napo
leon. He went to Nurnberg as rector of the Gymnasium in
the autumn of 1808. He wrote his Logic 1812-16. In
1816 he became Professor of Philosophy in Heidelberg,

APPENDIX. 403
and there pubUshed his ' Encyclopsedia of the PhUosophical
Sciences' in 1817. He received a caU to Berlin in 1818, to
fiU the place of Fichte, vacant since his death, with which
period his great fame and extensive activity may properly be
said to comraence. For much of his influence he was
indebted to the encouragement he received frora the govem
ment, which thought it found a powerful support in his
system. He prefened the society of siraple, unpretending
persons, and did not attempt to shine in social cfrcles. He
did not, Uke the philosophers of the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries — Bruno, Campanella, Des Cartes,
Spinoza, Malebranche, Leibnitz, Woff, Locke, Hurae, and
Kant — devote himseff to ceUbacy, but rather followed the
example of Fichte. He was married on the 1 6 th of Septera
ber 1811, to Mary von Tucher, 'of one of the oldest and
best known farailies of Nurnberg, whose beauty, unusual
inteUectual attainraents, and araiabUity,' gained the affections
of Hegel. The verses he sent her about the tirae of their
engagement are so tender, so affectionate, that you would
scarcely suspect that their author was the profound phUo
sopher at the age of forty. To give a nearer insight into the
state of his mind at that time, I vrill quote part of a letter
written shortly before his marriage to the lady (the letter is
given by Rosenkranz) : ' Maniage is essentiaUy a reUgious
bond; love has necessarUy for its supplement a higher
eleraent than siraply what it is in itseff. What is called
" satisfaction," and " being quite happy," can only be attained
by reUgion and the feeUng of duty.' Hegel was so happy in
his marriage that he wrote to Niethamraer : ' When a raan
has found an occupation and a vrife he loves, then he is pro
perly done with this life.' He had two sons, Charles and
Immanuel Being suddenly attacked by cholera, he died in
Berlin, in the height of his fame, November 14th, 1831,
at 5 1 P. M."
That Hegel's views, even when only twenty-five, were not
so very orthodox, may be seen from an extract from a letter
to ScheUing, written in 1795. Speaking of an essay of the
latter he says : " I have found in it a confirmation of a sus
picion long cherished, that, for us and huraanity, it would
perhaps have been more honourable if any one, be it which it

404 APPENDIX.
raay, of the heresies conderaned by councils and decrees, had
become the pubhc sj'stem of faith, than that the orthodox
systera should have retained the supreraacy."
However rauch Hegel hiraself raay have been charged with
Pantheisra, and however rauch this raay have been drawn
frora his phUosophy, it is evident that he hiraself thought
quite differently in reference to his system. That he actually
believed his philosophy agreed with Christianity, raay be seen
frora sorae of his own expressions, and is also advocated by
sorae of his followers. In a review of sorae reraarks of Dr
Tholuck, Hegel atterapted to show that the forraer was not
so very far removed from the advocates of Enlightenment,
frora the view he took of the doctrine of the Trinity : hence
it was said that Hegel wanted to be raore orthodox than Dr •
Tholuck. The great value whieh Hegel placed in knowledge
raade it quite natural that he should oppose the theology of
feeling, and especiaUy that forra of feeling which Schleier
raacher advocated — the feeling of dependence, — but this
argues nothing against his Christianity.
In 1829, "Aphorisras" appeared, by C. F. Goeschel, in
which the author, after showing that Jacobi's phUosophy did
not agree with Christianity, as raany supposed, attempted to
prove that the speculative phUosophy, even that which was
decried as atheistical, really agreed vrith Christianity, in which
Hegel's philosophy was included. Hegel, as his biographer
says, showed in a lengthy notice of the work that he con
sidered it quite au honour that his philosophy had thus been
proved Christian. To raany this appeared strange, thinking
that Hegel's systera was far reraoved from Christianity.
"But to us," says the biographer, "who have learned to know
Hegel's relation to theology from the beginning, there is
nothing surprising in the fact that Hegel was convinced that
in his speculation he was not only not in contradiction to the
essence of the Christian faith, but rather in unison with it."
Speaking of Hegel's "proof of the existence of God,"
Rosenkranz says : " This work is very valuable in reference
to Hegel's religious convictions, because through it can be
decided raost unequivocaUy that he accepted a personal God."
And in another place he says : " He (Hegel) declared hiraself
raost decidedly and in very plain words for personality, free-

APPENDIX. 405
dom, and immortaUty. He acknowledged that Jacobi was
quite right in regarding the Absolute as spirit, as personal.
. . . . Hegel says : ' God is not a dead, but a Uving
God.'" Of the Christian character of this philosophy Rosenkranz
says, in the introduction to the lffe of Hegel : " The Hegelian
philosophy, as far as religion is concerned, is essentially
Protestant. The philosophy itself was, however, always of
the opinion that it was truly Christian, and that therefore it
would have to war against rauch that is unchristian. It has
confessed itseff to be Protestant, and will continue to bear
before Protestantisra the oriflarae of freedom, by means of the
self-knowledge and seff-wUUng of what is eternally trae. It
seemed for a whUe as if SchelUng would, with greater success,
take this raission frora it. But this opinion soon vanished,
because ScheUing waved the raoral eleraent of Christianity
too rauch, and was concerned exclusively about a systera of
dogmatics, whose doctrines of the Trinity, whose Christology
and Satanology are heretical, aild whose conception of the
Church is negative in respect to all existing churches — a pos
tulate of the future."

TDRNBDLI, ASD SPEAES, PRISTKE9, EDI.VBDKGH

YALE UNIVERSITY UBRARY

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