Friedrich von Schleiermacher

“ The appearance of a work by Schleiermacher is always an enrichment to literature. Any product of a mind like his cannot fail to shed light and life on the minds of others. And of works of this kind our theological literature has certainly in these days no superfluity. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Shelley, the enthusiastic atheist, attributes the principal miseries of social humanity to traditional religion. "Unerring" nature is the divinity he substitutes for the God of the Bible. He considers that man has the right to demand happiness, and, like a true Englishman, contends, without troubling much about the psychology of the matter, for the freedom of the individual from the compulsion of external law. Schleiermacher warns against what is foolish, because, once the foolish step is taken, it is binding; but he, the Protestant pastor, only indirectly incites to revolt. ”

“ It will sound odd to our author when I tell him that, even now, he stands absolutely dependent upon Hegel and Schleiermacher, and that his teaching of the Cosmos, his way of regarding things sub specie biennii, his salaams to the state of affairs now existing in Germany, and, above all, his shameless Philistine optimism, can only be explained by an appeal to certain impressions of youth, early habits, and disorders; for he who has once sickened on Hegel and Schleiermacher never completely recovers. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To whom his manner is lively and affable; lively in mood, as if there lay no load upon his spirits. The business of these two Silesian Gentlemen, a Baron von Hocke one of them, a Baron von Kestlitz the other, was To present, on the part of the Town and Amt of Grunberg, a solemn Protest against this meditated entrance on the Territory of Schlesien; Government itself, from Breslau, ordering them to do so. Protest was duly presented; Friedrich, as his manner is, and continues to be on his march, glances politely into or at the Protest ”

“ 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. ”

“ The limitations of the historical Jesus both in an upward and downward direction are those only which apply equally to the Jesus of dogma. The uniqueness of His Divine self-consciousness is not to be tampered with. It is equally necessary to avoid Ebionism which does away with the Divine in Him, and Docetism which destroys His humanity. Schleiermacher loves to make his hearers shudder by pointing out to them that the least false step entails precipitation into one or other of these abysses; or at least would entail it for any one who was not under the guidance of his infallible dialectic. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Roth can spare none of these things, with the Prussians nestling there. Surely the Bishop himself, respectable Cardinal Graf von Sinzendorf, had better get out of these localities while time yet is?" "Saturday, 14th," that was the day Friedrich, at Ottmachau, wrote as above to Jordan (Letter No. 1) , while the Neisse Suburbs crackled lamentably, twelve miles off, "Schwerin gets order to break up, in person, from Ottmachan to-morrow, and begin actual business on the Kaninchen Hill yonder.
"SUNDAY, 15th. Schwerin does; marches across the River ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ On this subject Doering gives an anecdote, which may perhaps be worth translating. 'One of Schiller's teachers surprised him on one occasion reciting a scene from the Robbers, before some of his intimate companions. At the words, which Franz von Moor addresses to Moser: Ha, what! thou knowest none greater? Think again! Death, heaven, eternity, damnation, hovers in the sound of thy voice! Not one greater?—the door opened, and the master saw Schiller stamping in desperation up and down the room. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Schelling’s Religious Philosophy. Romanticism took a religious turn at the beginning of the eighteenth century under the influence of Schleiermacher.66 The motive of this movement was the thought that religious feeling lies below art. Reason can be completed only in religion, by which is meant not dogma, nor morality, but an æsthetic relation to the world-ground, a pious feeling of absolute dependence. It is the feeling of being permeated by the Absolute. Schleiermacher taught in the true Romantic spirit that religion is an individual matter and is different from church organization. ”

“ Did not Schleiermacher, frail and ailing as he was by nature, prove the truth of what he wrote in his youth, that there is no ageing of the mind?
The whole problem, in its highest aspects, is a question of will and faith. If I know mind and the nature of mind, and believe in it, I believe with Schleiermacher in eternal youth. If I do not believe in it, then I have given away the best of all means for warding off old age. For the mind can only hold itself erect while trusting in itself. ”

“ In the other atelier we saw a bust of Schleiermacher, which, with the equestrian statue of Fritz, and its pedestal, Rauch was going to send to the Paris Exhibition. Schleiermacher's face is very delicately cut, and indicates a highly susceptible temperament. The colossal head of Fritz, seen on a level with one's eye, was perfectly startling from its living expression. One can't help fancying that the head is thinking and that the eyes are seeing. ”

“ For all this barbaric ostentation the people of Württemberg were expected to foot the bills. 'Fatherland!' said his Highness, when a protest was raised on behalf of the country, 'Bah! I am the fatherland.'
Here it was, then, that the young Friedrich Schiller got his first childish impressions of the great world; of sovereignty exercised that a few might strut in gay plumage while the many toiled to keep them in funds; of state policies determined by wretched court intrigues; of natural rights trampled upon at the caprice of a prince or a prince's favorite. ”

“ But does not the purely human, but to a certain extent unhistorical, man, who is to be the ultimate product of the process of eliminating myth, serve Strauss as his “theoretic Christ” who determines the presentment of his historical Jesus? Does he not share with Schleiermacher the erroneous, artificial, “double” construction of the consciousness of Jesus? And what about their views of Mark? What fundamental difference is there, when all is said, between Schleiermacher's de-rationalised Life of Jesus and Strauss's? ”