Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schleiermacher

“ Man is by nature "a serious beast; one must labor to counteract this shameful tendency." Schleiermacher ventured, it is true, to raise the question as to whether the hero ought not to have some trace of the chivalrous about him, or ought not to do something effective in the outer world—and posterity has fully supported this inquiry.
Friedrich's next most important move was to Paris (1802) , where he gave lectures on philosophy, and attempted another journal. ”

“ Schleiermacher’s conception of dialectic is to the effect that it is concerned with the principles of the art of philosophizing, as these are susceptible of a relatively independent treatment by a permissible abstraction. Pure thinking or philosophizing is with a view to philosophy or knowledge as an interconnected system of all sciences or departmental forms of knowledge, the mark of knowledge being its identity for all thinking minds. ”

“ Wilhelm Tell
by Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
Translator: Theodore Martin
INTRODUCTORY NOTE Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller was born at Marbach, Wurtemberg, Germany, November 10, 1759. His father had served both as surgeon and soldier in the War of the Austrian Succession, and at the time of the poet's birth held an appointment under the Duke of Wurtemberg. Friedrich's education was begun with a view to holy orders, but this idea was given up when he was placed in a military academy established by the Duke. ”

“ The little man with bright eyes and a genial countenance gazed for a moment in silence upon his auditors, who thronged around him in suspense and curiosity. He then raised his arms, commanding silence. The laughter, shouts, and yells, died away; all eyes were fixed upon Schleiermacher, and the noise of the multitude seemed arrested as by a magician's wand, as the voice of the preacher resounded through the street clear and distinct. "You want me to read what has been addressed to us all," he said, "the manifesto which Minister von Hardenberg has issued to the people in the king's name. ”

“ Worse still was the possibility that his father might be made to suffer from the duke's anger. Nevertheless he resolved to take the risk. He made known his purpose to a very few friends, one of whom, Frau von Wolzogen, offered him her house in Bauerbach, in the event of his sometime needing a quiet refuge. Another friend, Andreas Streicher, nobly offered to share his fortunes, Streicher, to whom we owe a classical account of this episode in Schiller's life, was a young musician living with his mother in Stuttgart. ”

“ Though his mind was dialectical, he had too much poetry to do this. Genius, as has been often observed, does not create a school, but kindles an influence. The university of Berlin, the very centre of intellectual greatness in every department from its foundation, was the first seat of Schleiermacher's influence ”

“ Schleiermacher could not contemplate the wretched meagreness and degradation of his age without being moved as by 'a heavenly impulse.' His spirit was stirred within him as he saw men turning from the true God to base idols. He felt himself impelled to go forth with the power of a fresh and youthful enthusiasm, for the restoration of religion; to present it in its most sublime aspect, free from its perversions, disentangled from human speculation, as founded in the essential nature of man, and indispensable to the complete unfolding of his inward being. ”

“ Schlegel observes that the difference between strict law and equitable law is the most arduous problem in all jurisprudence. Strict law is an abstract law, deduced from certain general principles, applied without the least regard to adventitious circumstances. Equity, on the other hand, pays due regard to such circumstances, examines into the peculiar state of things, and the mutual relations of parties ”

“ It must even acknowledge that man, beside his higher dignity and divine destiny, is and remains in his outward existence a physical creature—and though he be such not in an exclusive, but only secondary and subordinate sense, still, in respect to his external being and external development, he may be subject to certain natural laws in history. In the same way it may admit that man endowed with freedom, even when he rejects the religious principle, is [251] still a being gifted with reason ”

“ In making his hero a defiant self-helper and sending him with sword in hand against the minions of the established order, Schiller was obviously influenced by the example of 'Götz von Berlichingen'. Like Götz, Karl Moor regards himself as the champion of freedom against the law, which is its enemy. Both are friends of the oppressed and haters of pedantry and pettifoggery. Both fight like lions against tremendous odds. Both assume the leadership of a band of outlaws whom they cannot control, and thus become responsible for revolting crimes not foreseen or intended. ”

“ In consequence of this theory Schleiermacher regards every feeling, every emotion, in so far as it expresses the united life of the Ego and the All in the manner described, as religious. "The feelings, the feelings alone, provide the elements of religion." He maintains that there is no feeling which is not religious, unless it is the product of a diseased or depraved condition, adding a note to the effect that this holds good even of the feelings of sensual enjoyment, so long as they are not contrary to nature or depraved. ”

“ Schleiermacher is not in search of the historical Jesus, but of the Jesus Christ of his own system of theology; that is to say, of the historic figure which seems to him appropriate to the self-consciousness of the Redeemer as he represents it. For him the empirical has simply no existence. A natural psychology is scarcely attempted. He comes to the facts with a ready-made dialectic apparatus and sets his puppets in lively action. Schleiermacher's dialectic is not a dialectic which generates reality, like that of Hegel, of which Strauss availed himself, but merely a dialectic of exposition. ”

“ Absolute, if this pernicious term must be used, the supreme power of the legitimate sovereign of a state may indeed be called in so far as he is responsible to God alone. For were the supreme ruler responsible to man, then the only difference would be, that instead of one, the many to whom he is answerable would be absolute. But in another sense, it is impossible to call the supreme power, wherever lodged, absolute or unlimited ”

“ The primary thought of God for Schleiermacher, is that of Feeling, which apprehends the unity of things in a single and immediate act of consciousness. "He regards the God-consciousness as immediate. The direct organ of the Knowledge of God is feeling." * * * * "The infinite is not outside the world of phenomena. On the contrary the latter exists within the 'Infinite One.' The 'Infinite One' is the completion of the series of conditioned existences, and not something separated from them. ”

“ Logical necessity is the measure and criterion of objective reality. The body of reality is developed through the dialectic self-movement of the idea. In such an idealistic monism, formal and real logic are by the metaphysical postulate coincident.
Schleiermacher in his dialectic regards logic from the standpoint of epistemological realism, in which the real deliverances of the senses are conceptually transformed by the spontaneous activity of reason. This spirit of realism is similar to that of Aristotle, in which the one-sided a priori view of knowledge is controverted. ”

“ A warm friend and patron of the arts and sciences; while the German Society flourished at Mannheim, he was its first President; and the theatre of that town, the school of the best actors in Germany, of Iffland, Beck, Beil, and many others, owes to him its foundation, and its maintenance throughout his long Intendancy, which he held till 1803. As a writer and a poet, he is no less favourably [355] known. We need only refer to his Cora, a musical drama, and to 'the Monch von Carmel.'—These letters of Schiller were found among his papers at his death ”

“ The relations between ideas must correspond with the relations between things. Particularly does the causal relation of objective reality correspond to the combination of concepts expressed in judgments. Here Schleiermacher presents a mixture of criticism and dogmatism. He forgets that the only knowledge we have of reality is by means of our thoughts, and furthermore that reality and thought forever remain incomparable. He nevertheless assumes that the identity of thought and being is a presupposition of knowledge, but not in itself knowledge. ”

“ Dilthey has described this course of the development of the critical romanticist in his Leben Schleiermachers. Schleiermacher's position in the history of philosophy is characterized by the fact that he keeps the spirit of the critical philosophy alive within the ranks of romanticism. His Socratic personality, in which the capacity of complete inner devotion was united with a remarkable degree of calm discretion, furnished the basis for the combination of romanticism and criticism. ”

“ He is simply a cynical brute in high office. In truth his conduct is so very inhuman as to convey an impression of burlesque. He seems copied from some ogre in a fairy tale.
But if President von Walter appears now like a melodramatic caricature, it is partly because times have changed; for Schiller was not without his models in the recent history of Württemberg. During the period of Karl Eugen's worst recklessness—the decade beginning with 1755,—he was loyally abetted by two men, Rieger and Montmartin, who made themselves thoroughly odious. ”

“ It is significant that in the same year there appeared Schleiermacher's lectures on the Life of Jesus, which had not seen the light for forty years, because, as Strauss himself remarked in his criticism of the resurrected work, it had neither anodyne nor dressing for the wounds which his first Life of Jesus had made. [2] The wounds, however, had cicatrised in the meantime. It is true Strauss is a just judge, and makes ample acknowledgment of the greatness of Schleiermacher's achievement. ”

“ And is not nature, on the whole, a life-tree, as it were, whose leaves and flowers are perpetually expanding themselves and seeking nourishment from the balsamic air of heaven, while, as the sap rises from the deep-hidden root into the mighty stem, the branches stir and move, and invisible forces sweep to and fro in its waving crown. ”

“ All-mighty and omniscient, however, He has Himself created the trees and flowers that He cultivates, has Himself made the good soil in which they grow, and brings down from heaven the balmy spring, the dews and rain, and the sunshine that quicken and mature them into life and beauty. ”

“ The starting-point of Schiller's invention was the conception of the two hostile brothers, and this he had from Schubart, although other writers, notably Klinger and Leisewitz, had already made use of it in dramatic productions. In the Schubart story [19] we hear of a nobleman with two sons, of whom the elder, Karl, is high-minded but dissolute, while the younger, Wilhelm, is a hypocritical zealot. Karl plays the rôle of the prodigal son and his excesses are duly reported at home by his brother. ”

“ The significance of this spirit for religion is apparent. Schiller has designated awe as the noblest human trait, and Schleiermacher found the springs of religion in the feeling of dependence. The first stage in the satisfaction derived from exaltation is akin to this when we enjoy our self-abasement in order to render more conspicuous the subsequent expansion of an individuality, in the second stage when by the exercise of inner imitation we identify ourselves with the revered object, thus partaking of the greatness which at first overawed us. ”

“ Schleiermacher denies any satisfaction to God by substitution. He puts in its place an influence of Christ's personality on men, so that they feel themselves reconciled and redeemed. The atonement is purely subjective. Yet it is the work of Christ, in that only Christ's oneness with God has taught men that they can be one with God. Christ's consciousness of his being in God and knowing God, and his power to impart this consciousness to others, make him a Mediator and Savior. The idea of reparation, compensation, satisfaction, substitution, is wholly Jewish. ”

“ And hourly with his rapid wings, Shall she be touched by flying time. A tongue to destiny shall she lend; Heartless herself to joy or grief, Still with her swing let her attend Upon the changeful game of life. And as the sounds which forth she casts, In mighty tones, on the ear decay; So let her teach that nothing lasts – That all things earthly die away. ”

“ Christianity in its primitive influence, was like an electric stroke, which traversed the world with the rapidity of lightning—like a magnetic fluid of life, which united even the most distant members of humanity in one animating pulsation. ”

“ Street and market grow more still; Round the candle's social flame, All house-dwellers meet together, And the town gate closes gnarring.
The earth doth dight Herself in black; But the safe burgher at the night Feels no awe, Which fearful wakes the guilty wight, For still watchful is the eye of law. ”

“ But when it survives the youthful ebullition of the feelings, when it does but become deeper and more intense by time, when it is satisfied with no joys, and stifled by no sorrows of earth—when, from the midst of the struggles of life, and the pressure of the world, it turns, like a light-seeing eye upon the storm-tossed waves of the ocean of time, to the heaven of heavens, watching to discover there some star of eternal hope—then is it that true and genuine longing, which, directing itself to the divine, is itself also of a celestial origin. ”