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SCHLEIERMACHER

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1903

SCHLEIERMACHER

PERSONAL AND SPECULATIVE

BY

ROBERT MUNRO B.D.

Old Kilpatrick

IVas gldnzt ist fur den Augenblick geboren ;
Das Aechte bUibt der Nachwelt unverloren.

— Goethe.

PAISLEY: ALEXANDER GARDNER

J^tthlisher bj ^pyoiirtmmt to the late BJiiten Birtotia
1903

1

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TO

Cbc Reu. Jllexanaer Wbpte, O.D.,

ST. GEORGE'S CHURCH, EDINBURGH,

JTbis BooF? is DcOlcateJ*

PREFACE

Schleiermacher's name is one of the greatest
in the history of modern thought. He was dis-
tinguished as a theologian, a preacher, a philoso-
pher, a moralist, and a statesman. No field of
speculation, or of activity, was alien to him. He
was a many-sided ethical genius, excelling not in
one sphere, but in many spheres.

Yet, significant and far reaching as his influence
is, he is to English speaking peoples little more
than a name. This is, no doubt, in great measure
due to the obscurity of his style, and to the fact
that his principal works can only be read in
German.

The present Study was originally intended for
Professor Knight's Philosophical Classics. When
it was nearly completed, 1 was laid aside for
months by a serious illness ; and, in the interval,
the publishers decided to discontinue the series.
On recently taking up the discarded task, I was
encouraged to believe it might be of interest as

lO PREFACE.

throwing light on some aspects of the life and the
teaching of the man. It is with that hope that
I now venture to make it public.

The biographical sketch is chiefly based on
Schleiermacher's Letters, and on every reference,
of a contemporary kind, that helped to a better
knowledge of the unique and complex personality.
I have, of course, consulted all the lives, reminis-
cences, funeral orations, and celebrations that have
been written in Germany — especially the elaborate
lives by Dilthey and Schenkel.

In the exposition of the philosophical and
ethical views, which is derived directly from his
published writings, I have sought, as far as possible,
without comparison or criticism, to allow Schleier-
macher speak for himself For those who have
not time to wade through the ponderous volumes
in which his speculations are contained, this plan
has at least the merit of presenting an outline of
what he really thought and taught.

It was my intention to have added a section on
Schleiermacher's theology ; but the limits of the
present work rendered that impossible. Nor is
this, perhaps, much to be regretted, as most that
is of permanent value in his Glaubenslehre has been
incorporated in the leading theological systems

PREFACE. I I

that have since appeared through the inspiration
of his thinking.

My thanks are particularly due to the Principal
and Senate of the Glasgow University for putting
at my disposal their magnificent library; to Mr.
George Reimer, Berlin, for the gift of several
interesting and rare booklets and pamphlets ; to
the Rev. W. M. Metcalfe, D.D., Paisley, who
kindly read and corrected all the proofs of the
biographical part ; and to Professor Hastie, Glas-
gow, who verified my translations in the chapters
on Will and Feeling, and made a few suggestions.
I am also deeply indebted to my brother — the
Rev. W. AI. Munro, Vicar of All Saints, Newport,
Monmouth — for his unfailing help and encourage-
ment.

The portrait is from Andorf's engraving of the
bust of Schleiermacher by the celebrated sculptor
RKUch. It was printed for me by Reimer, Berlin.

Old Kilpatrick,

March 6, 1903.

LITERATURE

Schleiermacher's works are published by Reimer, of
Berlin, in 30 volumes. The lives and appreciations are
numerous. A few of the more important need only be
mentioned. Ai/s Schleiermacher' s Leben in Britfen, by
W. Dilthey, 4 volumes (partly translated by Frederica
Rowan) ; Schleiermacher' s Briefwecksel, mit einer bio-
graphischen Vorrede, by W. Gass ; Leben Schleiermacher,
by W. Dilthey — a valuable study of the man in his
intellectual development and relation to the thought of
his time — (only one volume of this great work has as yet
appeared); and Friederich Schleiermacher, by D. Schenkel
— the best complete monograph on the subject. The
appreciations of Auberlen, Liicke, and Twesten are
interesting. R. Haym's colossal work, Die romantische
Schule : ein Beiirag ziir Geschichte des deuischen Geisies,
must not be omitted by any one who would fully
understand the romantic period in Schleiermacher's life.
Mrs. A. Sidgwick's Caroline Schlegel and Her Friends
gives a good account of the men and the women who
acted a part in that curious phase of German thought
and upheaval. The expositions and critiques of Schleier-
macher's speculative views are many and wearisome.
The works of Bender, Vorlander, Weissenborn, and
Schaller give the most comprehensive statement of the

LITERATURE

Schleiermacher's works are published by Reimer, of
Berlin, in 30 volumes. The lives and appreciations are
numerous. A few of the more important need only be
mentioned. Aus SchUiermacher's Leben in Brie/en, by
W. Dillhey, 4 volumes (partly translated by Fredeiica
Rowan); Schleiermacher's Brief wechsel, viit einer bio-
graphischen Vorrede, by \V. Gass ; Leben Schleier?nacher,
by W. Dilthey — a valuable study of the man in his
intellectual development and relation to the thought of
his time — (only one volume of this great work has as yet
appeared); and Friederich Schleiermaclier, by D. Schenkel
— the best complete monograph on the subject. The
appreciations of Auberlen, Liicke, and Twesten are
interesting. R. Haym's colossal work, Die romantische
Schule : ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des deutschen Geistes,
must not be omitted by any one who would fully
understand the romantic period in Schleiermacher's life.
Mrs. A. Sidgwick's Caroline Schlegel and Her Friends
gives a good account of the men and the women who
acted a part in that curious phase of German thought
and upheaval. The expositions and critiques of Schleier-
macher's speculative views are many and wearisome.
The works of Bender, Vorlander, Weissenborn, and
Schaller give the most comprehensive statement of the

14 LITERATURE.

philosophical, ethical, and theological positions. Very
suggestive too, in this connection, are the contributions
of Sigwarl (fahrbiich filr deutsche Theologie, bk. ii.) ;
Fischer (Studien und Kritiken, 1848); D. F. Strauss
in his Charakteristiken und Kritiken ; R. A. Vaughan
(Essays and Jiemains, vol. I.); J. D. Morell (Philosophy
of Religion); Alb. Ritschl's Schl.'s Reden u. Nachwir-
kungen, etc. 1874 ; and Lipsius, on the Reden, in
Jahrbtich f. prot. Theologie, 1875. More recent discus-
sions are those by Otto Pfleidcrer, Philosophy of Religion,
vol. I., The Development of Theology in Germany, pp.
44-56 and 103-130; O. Ritschl, ^ttidien ueber Schl. (in
Stndien u. Kritiken, 1888) ; Lichtenberger, History of
German Theology, pp. 46 165, translated, with a Preface,
by Professor Hastie ; and the Rev. John Oman's
translation of the Reden, with Introduction, 1893. A
selection of Schleierinacher's sermons viras done into
English, in 1890, by Mr-s. Mary F. Wilson ; and in the
same year Dr. Hastie's English edition of the Christmas
Festival appeared.

CONTENTS

PART I.-PERSONAL CAREER

I. Introductory 17

II. Early Days 2 [

HI. Moravian Influence 26

IV. Emancipation 36

V. Romantic Period 45

VI. Life at Stolpe 68

VII. Professor at Hallk 74

VIII. Love of Fathkrland 81

IX. The Preacher 87

X. Permanent Settlement in Berlin 96

XL Closing Estimate 116

PART IL-SPECULATIVE SIGNIFICANCE

PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION 131

I. General View 131
II. Starting-point and Scope of Theory

Of Knowledge 140

HI. Criteria of Knowledge 145

IV. Elements of Thought 155

V. The Forms of Thought 165

VL The Function of the Will 181

VII. Feeling, or the Unifying Principle igo

l6 CONTENTS.

PAGE

ETHICAL DQCTRTNE. 224

I. Philosophical Ethics 226

1. The Doctrine of Goods 234

2. The Doctrine of Virtues 247
J. The Doctrine of Duties 250

II. Christian Ethics 253

1. Purifying or Propagative Activity 265

2. Expansive Activity 277
J. Afanifestive Activity 283

EPILOGUE 287

INDEX 305

PART I

PERSONAL CAREER

I.
INTRODUCTORY.

The most brilliant period in the intellectual history
of Germany is that embraced by the latter half of
the eighteenth and the first decades of the nine-
teenth century. The national mind, after having
practically slept since it was rudely disturbed by
the Reformation, then suddenly awoke, and set
itself to complete the task which it had under-
taken, but had left unfinished, three hundred
years before. By a mighty effort it tried to
throw off the old bondage and narrowing influ-
ences of the Middle Ages ; and it essayed to set
out, free and unfettered, in search of truth and
reality. In philosophy, poetry, literature, and art
it put forth its best strength, and attained the
highest altitude it had yet reached. Kant, Fichte,
Schelling, Hegel, and Schopenhauer ; Lessing,
Klopstock, Wieland, Herder ; Schiller, Goethe ;
Tieck, Novalis, Richter, and Schlegel, are all the
products of this activity, the voices that give
expression to the thought and the aspiration of
the new era.

Yet significant and comprehensive as was this
movement, it was a movement on almost purely
17 2

1 8 SCHLEIERMACHER.

intellectual and humanitarian lines. It glorified
the individual and the race. It was a magnificent
representation of culture and morality as the only
adequate regenerators of the world. Religion, the
real essence and inspiration of life — that which
emancipates the soul from the trammels of the
temporal and makes it one with the Eternal — it
all but ignored. At the time there were, no doubt,
in Germany respectable enough representatives of
Christianity ; but, with the exception of Klopstock,
they stood outside the new movement, and could
not claim intellectual kinship with its great master
spirits. They consequently found it impossible
either to retain their hold on the minds of men, or
to win fresh acceptance for the old, traditional
view.

It was when these influences had attained their
limit — when the mental activity of the age had
reached its highest level, and when religion was at
its lowest — that Schleiermacher appeared. Equal
in intellect and acquirement with the greatest
thinkers of his generation, he at once took his
rightful place among them. He was not simply a
theologian whose widest outlook never extended
beyond the range of religious thought : there was
scarcely any department of knowledge represented
by the modern scientific tendency with which he
was not acquainted, and which his wonderfully
active and creative spirit did not enrich. His
labours in Philosophy, Ethics, Esthetics, History

INTRODUCTORY. 1 9

of Philology and Literature, have a permanent
value, and cannot be neglected by the student of
these sciences.

But, while Schleiermacher stood in the current
of all the chief movements of his time, it was
principally in the religious sphere that he influ-
enced his age, and is an influence still. Identifying
himself neither with the negative rationalistic
school nor with the traditional orthodox party,
he claimed for religion, at a time when it was
fashionable to disparage it, an eternal place in the
progress of humanity. The claim, backed as it
was by wide knowledge of theology, philosophy,
and the scientific method, received more than a
respectful recognition. Christianity, from his view-
point, became once more a mighty spiritual
potency. Like a second Luther, by his unaided
individuality, he called his generation back to
religion, and showed that true culture and the
perfect humanity are to be found in Christ and
His kingdom alone.

This constituted the real significance of Schleier-
macher for his own age. He showed not only the
reasonableness but the necessity of religion ; and
he led men from the barren fields of intellectualism
to the consideration of the emotional and the
spiritual in the human soul.

He was not, in the ordinary sense of the term,
the founder of a theological school : he was rather
the instigator of a new tendency. From him

20 SCHLEIERMACHER.

started that impulse which produced during the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries what is most
memorable in the theology not of Germany only,
but of Great Britain and America. Neander,
Nitsch, Twesten, Ullmann, Julius Miiller, Dorner,
Tholuck, Rothe, Martensen, Schweitezer, Usteri,
Erskine of Linlathen, Maurice, Hare, Tulloch,
Mansel, F. W. Robertson, Bushnell, and Henry
Drummond, are, among others, some of the great
souls that were more or less moulded by his
creative spirit. Even Baur and Strauss, Hofmann
and Kliefoth, far as they diverged in thought from
Schleiermacher, came under the spell of his all-
dominating genius, and received an abiding in-
spiration. He may indeed be said to have done
for theology what Kant did for philosophy ; and
no one can claim to know the trend of modern
theological thought who is not acquainted with
the scope and influence of his speculative system.

II.
EARLY DAYS.

Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher
was born at Breslau on the 21st November, 1768.
His father, Gottlieb Schleiermacher, a chaplain in
the Prussian army, seems to have been a man of
some culture and force of character. He was
the son of the famous preacher and enthusiast
whom Jung Stilh'ng delineates in his Theobald
as " Pastor Darius." In early life Gottlieb
came under the influence of the fanatical move-
ment with which his father was for a time
so intimately associated ; but the impression
which it made upon him was neither deep nor
lasting. His mind was of the strong, vigorous
order ; and it had an affinity for the philosophical
and the scientific rather than for the fanciful and
the imaginative. When he therefore broke away
from the fanaticism of his youthful surroundings,
he became a thorough-going sceptic ; and, for
twelve years, drifted sadly enough on the lonely
sea of doubt. At length, after many wanderings,
he found a solution of his difficulties and rest for
his soul in the old evangelical faith which he had
so long and persistently despised.

2 2 SCHLEIERMACHER.

Schleiermacher's mother was also descended
from an ecclesiastical family. Her father was
chaplain in ordinary to the King ; her brother
was a theological professor at Halle ; and many
of her near relatives, particularly Spalding and
Sack, occupied the highest positions in the
ministry of the Reformed Church. From the
little that is known of her she appears to have
been a singularly pious, shrewd, and intelligent
woman. Her chief sphere she found in the home,
and the work she liked the best was the service of
maternal love — the blessed ministry of shaping
young souls for the present life and the life that is
to be. During the frequent absence of her hus-
band on official duty, she superintended with much
wisdom and tact the early training of her children.
From the first she formed a high estimate of the
intellectual and spiritual endowments of Friedrich,
her first born. Though never physically strong,
he was a bright spirited boy, quick in perception
and amiable in disposition. "The dear child" —
so she writes to her brother — " gives us much joy
and great hope. He has a most tender heart and
a good head." " If Fritz goes on as he does he
will become quite a proficient in languages. His
masters are perfectly charmed with him. He is
already in the third form ; and although he is
the smallest boy in the school he stands first in all
his classes." This rapid progress at school gained
for him the reputation of cleverness, and had the

EARLY DAYS. 23

unfortunate effect of making him conceited, proud,
and intolerant. His mother tried hard to repress
these manifestations of feeling and temperament ;
but a curious experience which the child then had
did more to bring this about than all her remon-
strances. The young scholar could translate a
Latin author tolerably well, yet he knew so little
of the sense that he failed to form a clear concep-
tion of what he read. This consciousness, which
he did not notice as characterizing his comrades,
humiliated him greatly. It even made him enter-
tain doubts as to his much vaunted superiority of
faculties ; and he lived in constant dread lest others
should make the same unexpected discovery.

When he was ten years of age his parents left
Breslau, and took up their abode in the country.
For the constitutionally delicate boy this was a
pleasant and helpful change. Hitherto his little
world had principally been the world of books :
now, for the first time, he was brought face to face
with nature. Soon he became, if not its student
and slave, at least its wayward and wondering
child. Former studies grew distasteful, or were
discarded ; and he had no thought or attention
for anything but the ever varying beauty, the
freshness and the activity of rural life. These
were happy, peaceful days ; and if they did not
add much to the sum of his theoretical knowledge,
they had a good deal to show in the way of strong
animal spirits, and such multifarious stores of

24 SCHLEIERMACHER.

practical information as residence in the country
can alone bestow.

After two years of this free arcadian life,
Friedrich was sent to a boarding school in Pless,
in Upper Silesia, where he resumed his studies
with much diligence. It was here, under a disciple
of Ernesti, that his love for the classical languages
and literature was first called forth. But with this
widening of his intellectual horizon there came a
peculiar kind of scepticism which troubled his
young spirit. The more he studied the famous
masterpieces of Greek and Roman thought, the
more he doubted their genuineness. Fear of
ridicule kept the solitary, sensitive student silent ;
yet such was his passion for truth that it was not
until after knowledge and riper investigation had
shown him the utter groundle.ssness of his doubts
that he was perfectly satisfied.

There is also evidence that at this early stage
he was no stranger to the pain and harassment of
religious doubt. The doctrine of eternal punish-
ment and reward, and the question as to the
relation existing between the sufferings of Christ
and the guilt of men, especially disturbed his youth-
ful fancy. The insolubilities which these problems
raised bewildered and frightened him, and they
brought many a sleepless night of misery. Even
as volcanoes, on the eve of eruption, give premoni-
tory signs oi the terrible powers stirring far down
within their mysterious recesses, so these early

EARLY DAYS. 2$

movements of Schleiermacher's mind may be
taken as indications of the hidden underlying
forces of his soul, and of that complete intellectual
upheaval that was silently preparing in its inmost
depths.

III.
MORAVIAN INFLUENCE.

The Moravian Church, established by Count von
Zinzendorf in the first quarter of the eighteenth
century, though historically a resuscitation of the
old community of the Bohemian Brethren, was in
reality a new fraternity. Its aim was to unite in
holy fellowship all who loved the Saviour, and to
constitute a visible Kingdom of God on earth. In
its initial efforts after this high ideal the brother-
hood was guilty of many fanatical extravagances,
but latterly it became one of the purest and most
unselfish agencies for maintaining and propagating
the Christian faith. At a time when rationalism
was supreme in Europe the society never wavered
in loyalty to Christ ; and it was the first, in the
Protestant world, to undertake distinctly missionary
work in behalf of the heathen. It was also distin-
guished, not only on the Continent, but in Britain
and in America, for its religious activity and edu-
cational organizations. Indeed, among the many
spiritual enterprises of the eighteenth century, this
of the Moravian Brotherhood will always maintain,
both as to importance and significance, one of the
foremost places.
26

MORAVIAN INFLUENCE. 2J

It was in 1783 that Schleiermacher became
acquainted with this community. In the spring of
that year, he and his sister Charlotte were sent to
the principal Moravian school at Niesky, in Upper
Lausatia. Though the instruction imparted was
not the best possible, it was the best that he had
yet 'received. Especially was he indebted to
Hilmer, one of the teachers, whose lectures on
history appealed to his intellect and enlarged his
view ; and whose method of teaching Latin was at
once so simple and philosophical that he acquired
a fresh taste not only for that language but for the
study of other languages as well.

Another who greatly influenced him at this
time, was his school-fellow, Albertini, afterwards
bishop of the Brotherhood. This rare and beauti-
ful soul had much that was akin to Schleiermacher,
and became "the confidant of his heart and the
companion of his intellect.'' The two were in-
separable. To the rest of the scholars they were
known as Orestes and Fylades. They felt and
thought and studied in common. Their literary
undertakings were stupendous. Equipped with
nothing but a dictionary and a grammar, they read
through the works of Homer, Hesiod, Theocritus,
Sophocles, Euripides, and Pindar. Then, by way
of variety, and equally ill-furnished for the attempt,
they tried to find their way through the Hebrew
text of the Old Testament. It was a difficult task,

28 SCHLEIERMACHER.

but they held manfully on till they came to the
obscurities of Ezekiel ; and then they stuck.

It is easy to smile at these "colossal and adven-
turesome" efforts. Yet they were called forth by
something more than mere love of learning or
sense of novelty : they were the strivings of rest-
less spirits in search of that peace which they
failed to find in religion, as they knew it. This is
the explanation which Schleiermacher himself
gives. " We were," he says, speaking of Albertini
and himself, "still striving in vain after super-
natural feelings and for what, in the phraseology
of the Brotherhood, was called intercourse with
Jesus. The most violent strainings of our fancy
were fruitless, and the spontaneous exercise of the
same proved equally futile. Up till now we had
sought consolation in Greek poetry, and that was
a glorious solatnen." A glorious solameit, a blessed
anodyne, it might for the moment be ; nevertheless,
in the more serious moods of each it proved an
empty husk which but mocked the hunger of their
souls.

In 1785, a new career awaited both Schleier-
macher and his companion : the two were trans-
ferred to the seminary at Barby, which was really
the theological college of the Brotherhood. They
entered upon their course with large expectations.
Hitherto they had been trying to find their path-
way through the thickets and jungles of knowledge :
now they hoped to discover light and guidance.

MORAVIAN INFLUENCE. 29

But in this they were once more disappointed.
The teaching at Barby was the narrowest and
most antiquated possible. It traversed, with
saintly indifference, the well-beaten track of
formulas and sentiments, as if it could afford to
ignore the investicjations and discoveries of modern
philosophy and theology. The scientific spirit,
which was then everywhere beginning to stir, it
not only did not cultivate ; it banned it as an
evil to be abhorred. Equally ignorant, too, was it
of the new culture — the poetry, literature, art, and
romance of the time — and its far-reaching moral
and social significance.

If ever there was a safeguard against the rebel
tendencies of the age, surely it was to be found
within the pious and well-hedged enclosure of the
Moravian Theological Hall. Yet the very nar-
rowness of this institution — which was its glory —
brought about the result that it most wished to
avoid. Echoes from the great world of thought
reached even as far as the Moravian solitudes.
The eager youths, who had ears to hear, at first
listened in wonderment ; but the wonder soon
gave place to the murmurings and the language of
revolt. Why was the tree of knowledge so sternly
prohibited ? Was it that our masters were afraid
to make known the results of modern research lest
perchance they should approve themselves to our
intellect ; or lest, mayhap, they should not be able
to refute them ?

30 SCHLEIERMACHER.

Among those who thus felt and reasoned was
young Schleiermacher. He had been reading in
secret some of the modern reviews, and he had
managed, by means of forbidden correspondence,
to become the happy possessor of Wieland's Poems
and Goethe's Werther. These new voices awoke in
him the old spirit of doubt. There was no solamen
for him now in mere mental activity : the whole
fabric of his faith had become disintegrated, and
was ready to fall into pieces. He could no longer
believe or accept the essential doctrines of the
Moravian Church. Amidst the darkness of his
outlook, only one course seemed clear ; he must
forsake the community, in whose bosom he had
spent so many happy and blessed days.

In the season of his early difficulties he could
always go to his mother, assured as he did that he
should obtain both sympathy and help. No one
could read his soul as she could, and no one had
such influence over him. But, alas ! she had been
dead for more than three years; and the perplexed
student must, for the first time, open his mind and
heart to his father. It was a trying task ; yet very
deliberately he went through with it. In a most
touching letter, in which he describes the history
of his changed attitude towards the faith, he states
his opinions in a way that could not be mistaken.
" I cannot believe," so he writes, " that He who
only called Himself the Son of Man was the
eternal, true God. I cannot believe that His

MORAVIAN INFLUENCE. 3 I

death was a substitutionary atonement, because
He never Himself expressly said so, and because
I cannot believe that it was necessary. For it is
impossible that God, who has evidently created
men not for perfection, but for the pursuit of it,
can eternally punish them because they have not
completely attained unto perfection.'' This con-
fession, which denies the central doctrines of the
orthodox position, is followed by an earnest
request that his father would endeavour to enter
into his feelings and help him. Although his
present career was hopelessly arrested, all was not
lost ; there might still be some sphere for him out-
side the bounds of the community. The scholastic
profession was always open to him. But, above
all, he had an intense desire to go to the Univer-
sity at Halle. He was not without hope that in
that centre of free thought and opinion, he might
find the peace and expansion of soul for which he
had so long yearned. " Should your circumstances
at all allow it, I trust you will permit me to go to
Halle, even should it be only for two years. You
will at once see that my success in life depends on
this."

It was with a heavy heart that he sent away
this remarkable letter. After some weeks had
passed, during which his distress and tension of
miTid became so unbearable that he wrote a second
time, the longed-for answer came. Though grant-
ing permission to study at Halle, the reply was

32 SCHLEIERMACHER.

otherwise more severe than his worst fears had
pictured. " O thou foolish son," it goes on to say,
" who hath bewitched thee that thou dost not obey
the truth ; before whose eyes Jesus Christ was
pourtrayed, and who is now crucified by thee.
You were running well, who did hinder you that
you should not obey the truth. Such persuasion
is not from Him who has called you ; but a little
leaven leaveneth the whole lump. The same cor-
ruption of your heart, which four years ago made
you fear that on account of it you would be entirely
lost in the world, and which then drove you into
the congregation of the Brotherhood, you have,
alas ! fostered only too well. It has now leavened
your whole being, and driven you out of the con-
gregation. O, my son, my son, how deeply do
you afflict me ! What sighs do you call forth from
my soul ! And, if the departed know anything of
our state, O, what a cruel disturber of the peace of
your blessed mother you must be, when even your
step-mother, who is a stranger to you, weeps, along
with me, over you. Go forth then into the world,
whose honour you are seeking . . . And now,
my son, whom I press with tears to my anguished
heart, alas I with heartrending grief, I discard thee
— and discard thee I must, because thou wor-
shippest no longer the God of thy father, thou
kneelest no longer before the same altar with him.
Yet, once more, before we part, O, tell me, I
beseech you, what has the poor, meek, and humble-

MORAVIAN INFLUENCE. 33

hearted Jesus done to thee that thou renouncest
His Divine comfort and peace."

In such terms did the father, who had himself
at one time been in doubt, write to his son when
he was passing through the gehenna of spiritual
conflict. That these passionate expostulations and
outcries of disappointment did no good — that they
chafed and wounded, rather than convinced or
strengthened — can readily be imagined. Never-
theless, it says much alike for the father and the
son that this controversy, bitter and painful while
it lasted, was soon forgotten, and that the two were
ever after united in the closest and most loving
fellowship.

And so, after a long, weary struggle, which
strained to the utmost his love for truth and his
affection for his kindred, the gates of Barby were
at length shut behind him. As an eagle, that
has long in vain beaten its wings against the iron
bars of its cage, glories in the boundless freedom
of heaven, so he gloried when his bonds were cast
aside, and the pure air of liberty refreshed his
drooping soul.

But never, then nor afterwards, did he forget the
infinite debt that he owed to the Moravian
Brotherhood. He had, it is true, outgrown their
formulas and their methods of thought — they were
to him as things lifeless and dead — yet the
influence of their simple piety and their noble ideals
remained with him §trong and active to the last.

3

34 SCHLEIERMACHER.

It was here that his early love for the Saviour, and
his deep religious feelings, were first called into
existence. " Piety," he says, speaking of his
Moravian training, " was the maternal bosom in
whose sacred obscurity my young life was nur-
tured and prepared for the world, as yet closed to
it. In this sphere my spirit breathed long before
it found its peculiar place in science and in the
experience of life. It helped me when I began to
sift the ancestral faith, and to separate thoughts
and feelings from the rubbish heap of antiquity.
It remained with me, even when the God and the
immortality of childhood's days had vanished
before the doubting eye. It led me unintention-
ally into practical life. It showed me how I ought
to regard myself, with my talents and defects, as
sacred in my undivided existence. Through it,
too, have I entered into the knowledge of friend-
ship and of love." (Reden iiber die Religion, 4th
Ed., p. 10.)

In a similar strain did he write years afterwards
from Barby, the scene of his youthful struggles,
and which he liked to revisit in times of intellectual
weariness and troubled outlook : — " There is no
place which revives, as this does, the living re-
collection of the entire movement of my mind from
the first awaking to better things up to the point
where I now stand. It was here that the conscious-
ness of the relation of man to a higher world was
first stirred within me. ... It was here that

MORAVIAN INFLUENCE. 35

that mystic tendency, which has been so essential
to me, first developed itself — a tendency that has
saved and sustained me amidst all the storms of
scepticism. Then it was only in germ, now it
is matured ; and I can say, after all that has
happened, that I am still a Herrnhuter (a member
of the Moravian Brotherhood) — only a Herrnhuter
of a higher order."

IV.
EMANCIPATION.

The University of Halle, where Schleiermacher
was next enrolled as a student, in 1787, then en-
joyed a widespread reputation. Through the suc-
cessive labours of Christian Wolff, Baumgarten,
and Semler — the founders of modern theological
and Biblical criticism — the character of this Uni-
versity had undergone a complete change. From
being the recognised head of pietism, it became
the principal centre of the new rationalistic move-
ment. Thither flocked the youth of Germany in
the hope not only of being delivered from the
bonds of traditionalism, but also of being put in
possession of the results of strictly scientific inves-
tigation. Between 1780 and 1790 the theological
faculty alone was attended by an annual average
of eight hundred students.

And yet, although the University had a wide
reputation when Schleiermacher matriculated, its
reputation was pretty much a nominis umbra — the
lingering shadow of its former greatness. Semler,
who for thirty years had been the leading spirit of
the place, was now an old man, finding puerile
36

EMANCIPATION. 37

delight in the problems and mysteries of alchemy,
and otherwise manifesting that his eye had grown
dim and that his strength had abated. And his
colleagues, though learned and respectable, were
lacking in creative and impulsive force. They
were perplexed gropers in the vast labyrinth of
knowledge ; library-men, knowing books and ideas,
but without any experience of the thrill and the
glory of launching out fearlessl)' into the boundless
empyrean.

It can be readily understood that, surrounded by
such influences, Schleiermacher did not gain much
by his stay at Halle. Not that there was nothing
to gain — for an earnest plodder there was much —
but he had no claim then, or at any time, to that
title. He was an independent seeker after truth,
and could not tolerate anything that might even
seem to bar the way to its sacred presence. He
had also, as he tells us, something of that conceit
which is peculiar to the self-educated — to whom,
in a certain measure, he belonged — and which led
him to form an exaggerated idea of his own views
and methods. Indeed, with the exception of
Eberhard, who inspired him with an enthusiasm
for Plato and Aristotle, and the philologist, F. A.
Wolff, who assisted him with his Greek studies,
the other professors had not the slightest signifi-
cance for him. He wandered alone on his own
way, and simply ignored their guidance and help.
Little wonder should he, in later years, characterize

38 SCHLEIERMACHER.

this period as a chaos, formless and void, like
that which preceded the creation of the Cosmos !
It would, however, be wrong to suppose that
Schleiermacher did nothing while at Halle but
vaguely idle away his time. The truth is, his stay
there was full of intellectual activity. From the
first, he lodged with his maternal uncle. Professor
Stubenrauch, who, in these troublous years, was
one of the few that really understood him. To his
sympathy and encouragement he owed more than
he owed to the entire faculty. This good man
not only put his library at his disposal, but he took
a loving interest in his studies. In this way, when
the spell was upon him — and with Schleiermacher
study was always more or less a fitful passion — the
amount of work he got through was enormous.
During the two years he was under this genial roof
he made himself acquainted with the leading
tendency of Greek philosophy ; with the systems
of Leibnitz, Wolff, Kante, Fichte, and Jacobi ; with
the general history of human opinion ; with the
principles of mathematics, and with the minutiae of
the English and French languages.

In 1789, Professor Stubenrauch exchanged his
chair for the living at Drossen, a country town in
Neumark. At this quiet retreat Schleiermacher
spent a year in close and earnest study. Especially
did he endeavour to bring system and harmony
into his thoughts. Hitherto they stood separate
and unrelated : now he desired to impart to them

EMANCIPATION. 39

a unity which would at least give them sym-
metry and coherence. With this intention, he
traversed anew the field of Greek and of modern
philosophy ; and he even tried to reconstruct the
latter on the basis of the former.

It was while here, too, that, in seeking to form
some clear idea as to what career he should adopt,
he resolved to devote himself to the work of the
ministry. Theology, though it had been tem-
porarily displaced by philosophy, was the study
that still retained him. His inmost being was
religious, and the kind of action that suited
him best was that which came within the scope
of religion. Though he manifested an early
liking for philosophy — a liking which never after-
wards left him — yet there need be no doubt that,
had he made choice of it as his exclusive vocation,
it would have failed to reveal his true self and
power. These, for him, could only find their
highest expression in religion. That he should,
therefore, have presented himself as a candidate
for license does not surprise us : it was the inevit-
able destination of his peculiar individuality.

On being licensed, he was appointed to the
situation of tutor in the family of Count Dohna of
Schlobitten in Prussia. His connection with this
noble family afforded him the opportunity of
gratifying one of the intensest longings of his
nature — the longing for the refinement of social
life. While at Halle he did not make many

40 SCHLEIERMACHER.

friends, and the little he saw of the world was seen
through the eyes of others. He was, consequently,
awkward, shy, and reserved, lacking the ease and
grace of manner that he admired so much in
others. The consciousness of this defect gave him
the acutest pain ; and he often sighed for a wider,
freer life, which should develop the resources of
his nature. That life he now found in the society
of the Schlobitten family. " My lieart," he writes,
speaking of this period, " is properly cultivated
here. It is neither allowed to wither under the
the weeds of a cold erudition, nor are its religious
feelings deadened by theological subtleties. Here
I enjoy that domestic life which warms my feel-
ings, and for which man, after all, was destined."

It was here, while under Count Dohna's roof,
that he made the real acquaintance of women.
Before this, as he assured his friend Brinckmann,
" he only knew them from hearsay." Now he was
brought into the closest fellowship with them, and
began to understand something of their power in
unfolding and educating what is best in the human
spirit. They touched chords in his being that till
then had been untouched. They had brought
music into his life ; and the magic of their presence
had thrown over his hard, sceptical thoughts the
glow and the enthusiasm of love. The Countess
and her accomplished daughters — especially the
lovely Frederika — deeply influenced his impression-
able nature. Tineir beauty of form and character,

EMANCIPATION. 4I

their charm and grace of manner, inspired him
with those profound feeh'ngs of veneration with
which he ever afterwards regarded all women. To
his stay at Schlobitten that bias towards " the
eternal womanly," which so strongly characterized
him through life, may be directly traced.

But this rural paradise, where he spent three
happy years, had its evil spirit which destroyed
his peace and drove him out. The Count, who had
been a soldier, and was accustomed to be obeyed,
held peculiar crotchets regarding education. These
he, every now and then, propounded to Schleier-
macher, and ordered him to put them into practice.
For a time the tutor endeavoured, as far as was
consistent with his native dignity, to humour him.
On one occasion, however, when the Count was
specially assertive and insisted, in presence of the
children, that a certain method should be carried
out, Schleiermacher firmly and decisively refused.
The Count lost his temper, and spoke about dis-
missal. That was enough. Though the way to
restoration and favour had been opened, after the
first outburst of passion had allayed, Schleier-
macher could not bring himself to stay. And yet
to go was painful. Schlobitten had revealed to
him a new world, and breathed upon him the
fresh, warm love of womanhood. He had formed
ties that were new and strong and necessary, and
the sudden breaking of them was as the coming of
a great sorrow. What it cost him to leave no one

42 SCHLEIERMACHER.

knew. It was as if the gate of heaven had been
closed against him, and the angelic vision had been
withdrawn. The happy Schlobitten was hence-
forth but a memory, sweet and beautiful, and
colouring his ideal of the family life and its
eternal import.

After his return from Prussia, Schleiermacher
spent half a year as a public teacher at Berlin.
He had scarcely time to come under the influence
of that great intellectual centre when he was
called to be assistant minister to an aged relative
at Landsberg on the Warthe. The position was,
in many ways, a difficult one ; yet he filled it with
much acceptance and ability. As a preacher he
made a favourable impression, and indicated even
then that his real strength and capacity lay in that
direction. But he was not simply content with
preaching. He tried, in every possible manner —
by personal influence, by visitation, and cate-
chising — to educate and elevate the people. It
was no easy task — for they were profoundly ignor-
ant and had been sadly neglected — yet he perse-
vered at it, manfully and with varying success,
during the two years of his ministry at Landsberg.

But still, faithfully as he discharged the duties
of his office, lie did not neglect his favourite
studies. Kant, with whose speculations he had
been already more or less familiar, and whose per-
sonal acquaintance he had formed while at Schlo-
bitten, was obtaining an increasing ascendancy

EMANCIPATION. 43

over him. He was beginning to understand his
system, and to see how far it threw light on the
problem of knowledge ; how much of it was true,
and how much of it he could safely take as the
starting-point for the development of his own
thought.

Another who occupied him much at this time,
and whose influence had powerfully affected him,
was the "holy and repudiated Spinoza." This
profound thinker had for more than a hundred
years been all but forgotten. Now, however, the
labours of Jacobi and others had helped to create
a new interest in him. Among those who had
thus been led to study his wonderful system was
the young assistant clergyman at Landsberg. The
impression it made upon him was deep and
epochal. Perhaps, with the exception of Kant, no
one had yet given such an impulse to his thought,
or had brought such light and harmony into his
intellectual outlook as did the much neglected
Baruch de Spinoza.

Shortly after going to Landsberg, Schleier-
macher's life was saddened by the death of his
father. The bond between them had of late
grown very close. The old man, always a
voracious reader, and ever desirous of knowing
what was freshest in thought, latterly conducted
his studies on almost the same lines as his son.
Even Plato and Spinoza and Kant and Bahrdt
were not alien to him. Thus, although the theo-

44 SCHLEIERMACHER.

logical position of each remained radically un-
changed, their synipathies had widened and found
a common meeting-place. In early days, through
prejudice and self-will, they had misjudged each
other, but now they had learned to love and
appreciate one another with unrestrained confi-
dence. It was while this friendship was closest,
and while each was becoming indispensable to the
other, that death intervened. For Schleiermacher
the sudden and unexpected separation was the
first real sorrow of his life. In a letter to his sister
Charlotte, at Barby, he gives touching expression
to the effect it had upon him. " I have scarcely
courage to speak to you about the sad event which
heaven has ordained for us. I can return you
nothing but the mournful echo of your own
lamentation — and not even that can I give you.
His loving, tender soul stands in a thousand
images before me, and I cannot yet reconcile my-
self to the melancholy certainty that all is past.
It is the first time in my life that I have really
experienced an irreparable loss ; for when our
dear mother died I was merely a child.
A rare happiness we possessed and have lost.
. . . Peace, peace be with his dust, and may his
soul find pleasure in his children.''

V.

ROMANTIC PERIOD.

Towards the close of 1796, Schleiermacher was
appointed chaplain at the Charity, or the Hospital,
Berlin. This position, though it afforded little
scope for his preaching powers, was of much
significance as bringing him into contact with the
varied life of the Prussian capital.

Berlin at this date was undergoing a complete
social and intellectual transformation. It stood at
the parting of the ways, between the old order and
the new.

As to the old, both socially and intellectually,
not much that is good can be said. Berlin society,
under the libertine influence of the Court, and the
low moral ideals that were then everywhere pro-
claimed, was utterly depraved. The wildest infi-
delity was promulgated, and the grossest corruption
practised. Social life had sunk.to an inconceivably
low level. The sanctity of marriage and the claims
of the family were honoured lightly, or altogether
disregarded. To such a depth, indeed, had the
city at this time reached, that it had won for itself
the unenviable reputation of being called the
modern Venusberg.

45

4.6 SCHLEIERMACHER.

Literature and philosophy also shared in the
common degradation. It was the age in which
Ramler was accorded a place among the Immor-
tals ; in which Nicolai was held to be the prince of
critics, a veritable literary Goliath, dealing destruc-
tion to all the champions of the younger genera-
tion ; in which Mendelssohn was accounted the
only philosopher ; and in which Garve and Engel
were put forward as the authorised oracles in
ethics. The movement represented by such men —
it was called the Aufkldrung, or the Illumination —
had no doubt, at first, a very definite purpose to
serve, but in the end it became mere darkness and
chaos, giving out as it went a miasma fatal to the
free and healthy development of the human spirit.

But if Berlin was morallyand intellectually under
the shadow, there were plentiful indications of the
coming of a better day. The splendid revolution,
inaugurated by the modern poets and philosophers,
was even then beginning to make itself felt. To
the younger generation Lessing, Herder, Goethe,
and Schiller were disclosing, as by magic, the
glories of the ideal, and calling upon men to seek
for the perfect life in the beautiful forms and con-
ceptions of antiquity. On the other hand, Kant
and Fichte opened up the sphere of the subjective,
and showed the grandeur of the human personality
and the boundlessness of its moral power. These
creations of the new-born spirit — so original in
thought and expression, so human in their aims

ROMANTIC PERIOD. 47

and interests — stirred Berlin to its depths. They
awakened it out of its gross slumbers, and brought
it, for a time at least, back to its real manhood.

Then, again, in addition to this marvellous move-
ment, there arose another, as its outcome, yet
different from it, which helped to bring in the new
epoch. This was Romanticism, the glorification
of the fantastic and the sentimental, the subjection
of the mental and the moral to the imaginative
and the natural. This new tendency, while
generally accepting the fruits of modern culture,
as represented by the poetry of Goethe and the
philosophy of Kant, sought to retain and etherealise
the natural sensuous life, with which, in another
form, Berlin society was already too well
acquainted. It was the re-action of the rising
age against the narrowing influences by which the
the instincts of the mind and the heart had been
so long suppressed. It was the protest of clever
men and women, like Schlegel, Tieck, Bernhardi,
Wackenroder, Henriette Herz, Dorothea Veit,
Caroline Schlegel, and Rachel Levin, against the
supremacy of intellect and reason, to the exclusion
of feeling and imagination and those inner im-
pulses of the soul, without whose presence the true
purpose of life cannot be attained.

Schleiermacher did not, on going to Berlin, im-
mediately come under the influence of these strong
currents of thought and action. His earliest
friends in the city were Sack and Spalding, the

48 SCHLEIERMACHER.

orthodox leaders of the Reformed Church. He
was consequently, at the outset, lonely and dull
enough. He had no one to whom he could utter
the silent voices of his spirit, no one who could
either understand him or sympathise with him.
He did nothing, he tells us, at this period but gaze
idly in upon his thoughts in the same listless
manner in which the Indian gymnosophist contem-
plates all the day the point of his nose I

The first to break this monotony was Friedrich
Schlegel. The two met at a literary society the
summer after Schleiermacher went to Berlin. The
casual acquaintance then formed gradually ripened
into a friendship distinguished not less for its
warmth and closeness than for its significance in
the life history of each.

I. — INFLUENCE OF SCHLEGEL.

Karl Wilhelm Friedrich von Schlegel was one
of the principal Titans who helped to dethrone the
decrepit dictators of the Aufkldrimg, and to usher
in a new and more hopeful era. When he took up
his residence in Berlin — about ten months after
Schleiermacher went there — he had only attained
his twenty-fifth year ; yet he was even then the
foremost litterateur and critic of the rising genera-
tion. He was an aesthetic genius, with strong
historical instincts. The beautiful and the ideal
had an unceasing attraction for him. They were

ROMANTIC PERIOD. 49

the basis of his culture, the material that went to
form the shape and texture of his being. The
poetry and art of Greece and Rome, the creations
of the Middle Ages, and the marvellous poetical
and philosophic productions of his own century, all
occupied him, and filled his soul. He rooted him-
self in the past and in the present ; but he radi-
cally differed from each. Instead of seeking with
the poets of antiquity, and with Goethe and
Schiller among moderns, the real in the ideal, he
reversed the process, and tried to make the ideal
real ; instead of finding, with Kant and Fichte,
the unity of thought in the universal, he placed it
in the personal ego, independent and irresponsible.
He assigned to the individual the formation of his
own world and his own destiny. The tendency of
all his efforts was to dethrone the moral ideal, and
to enthrone in its stead the particular inclination
or fancy of each. He was, in short, the apostle of
a spiritualized or glorified naturalism.

Schlcgel, on settling at Berlin, at once became
the rallying point around which gathered the
young and ardent spirits who had insight enough
to discern the heavens and the coming change.
Tieck and Schleiermacher, Bernhardi, and Wacken-
roder, were the first who were captivated by his
critical views, and his questionable mystical
naturalism. Each of these, in his own way, had
arrived at conclusions not far remote from those of
Schlegel : what they lacked was a personal leader.

4

50 SCHLEIERMACHER.

That, they had now found ; and, under the guid-
ance of this new leader, they became the chief
representatives of that transient phase of thought
— dignified by the name of Romantic School —
which played such havoc with the traditional
standards, and occupies such a phenomenal posi-
tion in the history of German thought and litera-
ture.

The influence of Schlegel upon Schleiermacher
was immediate and overpowering. The gay,
open-hearted young man, with his knowledge and
enthusiasms, his wit and originality, " created a
glorious change in his existence." He constituted
the necessary complement to what was lacking in
his nature. Schleiermacher's mental activitj' had
hitherto been purely subjective. The world of his
thought he shared with no one. It was a kind of
cloudland whose solitary pathways had been
guarded against every intruder, and whose stillness
no friendly voice ever disturbed. The first to alter
all this was Schlegel. He broke through the
enhedgements of Schleiermacher's soul, and dis-
covered the rare world within. His genial pre-
sence awakened what was dormant, and set in
motion what was latent and inert. The great mass
of thought that till now had remained inarticulate
became articulate, and the silent " gynosophist "
discovered that he too was a thinker.

In another way Schlegel also influenced Schleier-
macher : he led him to a profounder study of

ROMANTIC PERIOD. 5 I

literature and art. This more vigorous form of
mental activity widened the solitary student's
somewhat narrow horizon. It made him feel that
it is not good for philosophy to be alone ; and
that, self-sufficient as it may be, it can gather
from every sphere of knowledge. The benefit that
he derived from acquaintance with the beautiful
literary and artistic creations of all ages was a per-
manent gain, and stamped itself on the form of his
thought and expression. Indeed, as Schleier-
macher himself gratefully admitted, his friendship
with Schlegel produced a new epoch in his philo-
sophic and literary history.

Bracing and powerful as the friendship of
Schlegel was for Schleiermacher, it must, however,
be said that it had for a time a disturbing effect on
his spirit. Schlegel's strong point was not
morality. He had openly broken with it — and in
the Romantic movement there was no provision
made for it. This, to a nature so essentially pious
as that of Schleiermacher, must ultimately present
itself as a fatal want. Yet so engrossed was he in
the schemes of his friend, so enslaved was he by
the new culture, that he did not, at once, discern
the defect. His moral sense was being uncon-
sciously neglected, and there are indications that
he failed to grasp the proper proportion of things.
This was particularly the case in the publication
of Confidential Letters on Schlegel's Lucinde.
Lucinde was a distinctly immoral work, and the

52 SCHLEIERMACHER.

Letters, which were a defence of it, were a sad mis-
take. However full of deep moral truth and well-
expressed thoughts, they were still nothing but " a
beautiful commentary on a bad text." And if, at
this distance, the character of their author requires
that they should be apologised for, it may be said,
in extenuation, that they were the outcome of the
strong if, perhaps, blinded admiration with which
he regarded Schlegel.

II. — FRIENDSHIP WITH HENRIETTE HERZ.

It was a frequent saying of Schleiermacher that
he was better understood by women than by men.
Certain it is that some of his warmest friendships
were formed with women. Without their sympathy
and insight we should not have known him as we
do. His letters to his fair correspondents are in
great part self-revelations, and if we did not
possess them much that we know as to his life and
habits would have been for ever lost.

At the time that Schlegel, by the strength of his
personality was leading the unknown preacher of
the Berlin Charity to a knowledge of his true
destiny, Henriette Herz was silently and uncon-
sciously conducting him towards the same goal.

This cultured and lovable woman, whose reputa-
tion for force of intellect and beauty of person
long lingered as a kind of tradition in Berlin, was

ROMANTIC PERIOD. 53

the daughter of a Jewish physician, and was
married, while almost a child, to Dr. Marcus
Herz, a man more than double her age. Though
the marriage was childless it was singularly happy.
The tastes of the two were in many things alike ;
and they filled up the spare hours with the
pleasures of intellectual society, and in the pursuit
of literature, and science and art. Their home was
the recognised centre of all that was best in the
culture and refinement of Berlin.

Schleiermacher was introduced to this brilliant
circle by Count Alexander Dohna, a son of his
former patron at Schlobitten. He was then
without fame or reputation ; but the Herzes very
soon discerned the treasure of intellect that lay
hidden in the little body of their new friend, and
did what they could to develop it. They introduced
him to the most notable people in the city, and
made him see that he could more than hold his own
among such men as Friedlander, Maimon, Engel,
Moritz, Teller, Zollner, Gentz, and the brothers
Humboldt. But, better than this, they received
him into the closest intimacy of their social and
domestic life. So attached did they become to
him, and he to them, that no day passed without
his spending part of the evening in their company.
It is even related how, in their anxiety for his
safety along the dark roads, they presented him
with a small lantern constructed so as to allow of
its being fixed to the button-hole of his coat.

54 SCHLEIERMACHER.

Thus accoutred, he made his way each winter
night to and from his friend's house !

Much as Schleiermacher gained from these
influences, it became increasingly manifest that
Mrs. Herz was his principal teacher. He learned
more from her in those days than he did from the
entire circle of her distinguished friends and asso-
ciates. She had much that he was deficient in,
and what she lacked he was able to bestow.
They studied together Goethe, Shakespeare, and
Plato. She taught him Italian, and he imparted
to her what he knew of the physical sciences.
They conversed freely on all subjects, and they
walked abroad in the most unconstrained fashion.

But morally, even more than intellectually, did
she help to mould his nature. Hitherto, during
his years of lonely study — and especially when
dominated by Schlegel — his understanding and
imagination had been chiefly developed. Now,
however, under the genial spell of one of the
most beautiful and accomplished women of her
time, the spiritual and emotional side of his being
was called into action. Indeed, it may be said
that Henriette Herz did for Schleiermacher's moral
life what Friedrich Schlegel had done for his
intellectual : she awakened it from its slumber,
and pointed to the path of duty and achievement.

There were not wanting ill-natured people who
whispered that the intimacy existing between
Schleiermacher and Mrs. Herz was based upon a

ROMANTIC PERIOD. 55

warmer sentiment than friendship. The wits of
Berlin even went so far as to make the two the
objects of their stupid satire. But the suspicion
was unworthy as it was unjust. Their relation to
each other was of the most open and undisguised
character, and not a shade of passion coloured it
on either side. They could well afford to make
light of the stupid calumny ; for a purer, a more
disinterested, and, in some respects, a more unique
friendship perhaps never existed than that which
they maintained for each other.

III. — LITERARY LABOURS.

Schleiermacher had now reached the age of
thirty, yet, with the exception of translating some
English sermons and writing one or two papers for
the Athenceum, the short-lived organ of the
Romantic School, he had done no real literary
work. But his day, long delayed, had at last
come. His profound study of philosophy, especi-
ally of Plato and Aristotle, Spinoza, Kant, Fichte,
and Schelling ; his thorough acquaintance with
the great classical works of his own and other
lands, and his close identification with the modern
forms of culture, were about to bear fruit worthy
of his genius. Though he had entered into the
spirit of his age, and assimilated its most diverse
elements, as few had done, he had never lost his

56 SCHLEIERMACHER.

early piety — those religious instincts that were
called into life at his mother's knee, and in the
home of the Moravian Brotherhood. These were as
the anchor which kept him from drifting into the
abysses whither so many of his associates had been
carried. Much as he was the product of forces
alien to the common religion, much as he lived in
an atmosphere in which nature and the individual
will or Ego were regarded as all and everything,
his religious life was not destroyed, neither did it
degenerate. Kinship with what was newest and
most revolutionary in the past and in the present
left him, what he always was, a Herrnhuter, but a
Herrnhuter of a higher order than in the old
Silesian days.

It was fitting, therefore, that when the ferment
within him had subsided, and his thoughts and
ideas called for expression, Schleiermacher should
have made choice of religion as the medium
through which to utter them. Religion was the
master-passion of his spirit, and around it, as
around a living centre, he felt that all that he had
yet learned took shape and found its rightful place.
What he sought to do was to represent religion,
" this great spiritual phenomenon," in the light of
man's inner nature, and to claim for it an essential
and independent place in the human soul. This
had been his aim ever since he had begun to
think about the matter ; and now in the fulness
of his strength he was constrained as by an inward

ROMANTIC PERIOD. 57

necessity to give utterance to the hope and the
light that were in him.

The Discourses on Religion, Addressed to the
Cultivated among its Despisers — Schleiermacher's
first important work — was written at Potsdam, far
from the disturbing influences of the Metropolis,
in the beginning of 1798. While occupied with
the task, he so threw his soul into it that every
energy of his being was brought into action, and
the whole time he was engaged upon it seemed
but as one long day. Each discourse, when it was
finished, was sent to Henriette Herz that her
opinion regarding it, as well as that of Schlegel
and the other interested friends, might be obtained.
But though opinions and suggestions enough were
freely tendered, they were never in any case acted
upon. At length, on the 15th of April, after three
months of unremitting toil, the final touches were
given to the Discourses, and the following year
they were published.

The Discourses, both in style and matter, were
singularly fresh and original. Their easy flow,
their brilliant and eloquent sentences, their use of
plain, simple language, and their subtle dialectic
skill, formed a striking contrast to the dull and
laborious fashion in which religious works were then
wont to be written. And if the style was remark-
able, not less remarkable was the matter. Schleier-
macher did not appear as the defender of a
dogma or a creed, of a priesthood or a Church.

58 SCHLEIERMACHER.

His purpose was higher. He saw that the men of
his age were despising religion because they did
not understand its meaning. The doctrines, and
the ceremonies, and the uses of religion, which
they mistook for the thing itself, were in reality
not religion at all : they were simply its external
and necessary manifestations. Religion, he taught,
is inward, of the soul, independent of holy records,
dead traditions, and political systems. Although
there can be no true knowledge or action without
religion, yet it is neither a form of metaphysics,
nor of morals, nor a combination of both. It is
the direct feeling that each one has in himself of
the infinite and the eternal. " It is the intuition
and sentiment of the universe," " a sense and taste
for the eternal;" "the immediate consciousness
of the universal being of all that is finite in the in-
finite and through the infinite, of all that is tem-
poral in the eternal and through the eternal. This
seeking and finding of the universal being in all
that lives and moves, in all becoming and change,
in all action and suffering ; and to have and to
know, in immediate feeling, life itself as the infinite
and eternal life — that is religion. . . It is a

life in the infinite nature of the whole, in the one
and the all, in God, having and possessing all in
God, and God in all.''

As thus defined, religion, though it has an inner
organic unity in its movements and manifestation,
is something more than a mere system of doctrines

ROMANTIC PERIOD. 59

and propositions. It is a state of feeling immedi-
ate and true for all. Its range is infinite, and it
cannot be included under any individual form, but
only under the content of all. The religious man
is thus ever the most tolerant, for to him the
sphere of religion is boundless as the life of nature
and of humanity. It is the systematisers of truth
who have always proved the narrowest, and who
have been the fiercest in their defence of the
empty form. " The adherents of the dead letter,
which religion discards, have filled the world with
their clamour and tumult ; the true contemplators
of the eternal were always peaceful souls, either
alone with themselves and the infinite, or, if they
looked about them, they willingly conceded to
each, providing he understood the great reality,
the form that pleased him best.''

So independent, indeed, is religion of dogma
that it can exist apart from those doctrinal ideas
that are usually considered to be the condition of
all religion. Miracle and revelation, God and
immortality, though immediately given in con-
sciousness, are, as dogmatic conceptions, not
necessary to the existence of the religious spirit.
Instead of preceding and creating the pious dis-
position, they are the result of it. They are the
expression of the feelings common to every re-
ligious man. " You are right to esteem lightly
the poor parrots who derive their religion entirely
from another, or connect it with a dead book, by

6o SCHLEIERMACHER.

which they swear, and by means of which they
prove all things. Every holy writing is in itself a
glorious production, an eloquent memorial of the
heroic time of religion ; but through servile venera-
tion it becomes simply a mausoleum, a monument,
witnessing that a great spirit once was there, which
is there no longer. . . Not every one that

believes in a holy scripture has religion ; buf only
he who understands it in a living and immediate
way, and who could, therefore, the more easily
dispense with it." " If in the contemplation of
what is about us we see no miracles of our own, if
in the depths of our being no revelations arise
when the soul longs to drink in the beauty of the
world and to be pervaded by its spirit ; if in the
most important moments we do not feel the im-
pulse of the Divine Spirit so that we speal< and act
from our own holy inspiration ; if we are not at
least conscious that our feelings are the immediate
influence of the universe, while we still know that
some part of them is our own that cannot be
imitated, but can attest its pure origin within our-
selves, we have no religion."

In this theory of religion there is, it must be
admitted, much that is one-sided and exaggerated,
much that even Schleiermacher modified or over-
passed. His limitation of religion to the " intui-
tion and feeling of the universe" is indefensible ;
and those critics who, like Sigwart, Lipsius, and
Pfleiderer, maintain that such a restriction, when
pressed, as it is pressed in the Discourses, makes

ROMANTIC PERIOD. 6l

religion merely a product of the subjective con-
sciousness to the exclusion of all objective reality,
are in the main right. And yet, notwithstanding
this imperfection of representation — which Schleier-
macher himself was the first to see and to attempt
to correct — his view of religion was a great advance
on the old dogmatism with its outward forms and
alien apparatus. It made religion a conscious life,
not a mechanical system, an influence of the Divine
upon the human spirit, and not a thing of arith-
metical calculation. " The soul," so Pfleiderer ex-
presses it, ■' was recognised as the place from which
the religious processes take their rise and run their
course. The activity of consciousness was seen to
be the medium by which that inner product is
broken up, reflected, projected to externality, in
short translated into the language of religious
notions. Thus the fundamental thought of all
modern philosophy, which formed more or less
consciously the tendency of the philosophy of
religion from Lessing downwards, was for the first
time carried out in a thorough manner in the field
of religious science, thus laying a new foundation,
inaugurating a new era, for this science. This is
the immortal work of Schleiermacher, and the
merit of it remains to him, even though we should
confess that the first attempt to carry out this
principle was inadequate and one-sided."*

* The Philosophy of Religion, by O. Pfleiderer : Williams &
Norgate, London and Edinburgh; vol. i., p. 316.

62 SCHLEIERMACHER.

The impression which the Discourses created
was deep and electrical. Many were tired of the
old, lifeless dogmas, and they equally despaired of
the arid scepticisms that tried to usurp their place.
To such the manifesto of Schleiermacher came as
a very voice from heaven. Claus Harms — after-
wards distinguished as a preacher and a champion
of the faith — tells how he read it with breathless
interest, and how it became the " birth-hour of his
higher life,'' and " the impulse to an eternal move-
ment." Zaremba, the missionary, dated the be-
ginning of his spiritual life to the influence of the
Discourses, which came into his hands while acting
as court-diplomatist at St. Petersburg ; and it is
well known that it was through the reading of
them that Neander, the great historical genius of
Germany, was led to the study of the gospel.
Novalis, who like Schleiermacher had been in his
youth a member of the Moravian Brotherhood, ex-
pressed himself as being " possessed, penetrated,
inspired and set aflame " by the work. Schlegel
— not perhaps a judge of the moral import of the
book, nevertheless a very competent critic as to its
literary form — praised the Discourses as " the first
of their kind, full of energy and fire, yet perfectly
artistic, and written in a style that would not have
been unworthy of the ancients." Even such
mighties as Goethe, Schelling, Fichte, and J. P.
Richter, deigned to notice the brilliant little work,
and to speak of it with respect.

ROMANTIC PERIOD. 63

Indeed, with two notable exceptions, the Dis-
courses were everywhere received with favour as a
much needed utterance. Strange as it may seem,
the only hostile voices raised against them were
those of the advanced rationalistic and the narrow
orthodox parties. Antagonistic and apart on
every other point, they were at one here. The
rationalistic section disliked the book because of
its spirituality, and because they had discernment
to see that though new in form it conserved much
that lay at the heart of the old theology. The
orthodox leaders, on the other hand, saw nothing
in it but barefaced unbelief, rampant atheism and
undisguised pantheism. There were few, indeed,
even of the most far-seeing, who hailed it as the
dawning of a new era alike in religion and in
theology.

The Monologues, the next noteworthy creation
of the Romantic period in Schleiermacher's life,
was published in 1800, as a new year's greeting to
the coming century. Like the Discourses, this
work was the outcome of an inner necessity, and
was finished in an incredibly short time. It is a
self-revelation — an utterance in the world's hearing
of what he had spoken and acted in the innermost
sanctuary of his being. It is a description of his
own ideal life, a free unfolding of the aims and
activities and hopes of his soul.

But although interesting on account of this self-
portraiture, this self-idealisation of their author,

64 SCHLEIERMACHER.

the Monologues have a far greater significance than
what attaches to the merely personal and autobio-
graphical. They do for the ethics of the individual
what the Discourses did for the religion of the
race ; they assert its free and independent exist-
ence, and they indicate how it can be attained and
developed.

The opening Monologue, entitled " Contempla-
tion," strikes the key-note of the entire series.
This outer world, this " mirror of the spirit," " with
its eternal laws and fleeting phenomena," is not
the sphere of man's real self and activity. It is
only when man turns away from it to the inner
world ; when he withdraws himself from finite
forms and events, and concentrates his attention
on the innermost essence of being — the absolute
self-consciousness — that he finds his own true and
eternal personality. The one — the outer — is fleet-
ing, shadowy, limited, and unreal ; the other — the
inner — is supreme and permanent, the primary
source of existence and of freedom. The life that
is shaped in the one is bound as by chains, is sub-
ject to necessity, conflict, and finality ; whereas
the life that is lived in the other is free and
unfettered — a life which "the world cannot change
and time cannot destroy, for it is itself the creator
both of time and of the world." " Holy freedom,
thou art supreme oi^er all. Thou dwellest in me,
in all. Necessity has its sway outside of us ; it is
that distinct note in the beautiful conflict of

ROMANTIC I'ERIOD. 6$

freedom by which we are made aware of its pre-
sence. I can only contemplate myself as free ;
what is necessary is not my act, it is only its
shadow, it constitutes the elements of the world
which I, in joyous fellowship with all, help to
create."

This inner life, reached through self-contempla-
tion, is man's real and abiding life. It is that true
form of his being which, amidst the activities of
the world, should ever stand out clear and distinct
before the eye of the soul. " Begin even now
thine eternal life in constant self-contemplation.
Care not for what shall be, weep not for what has
been, but have a care not to lose thyself, and weep
when thou art carried away into the stream of
time without bearing heaven within thee."

From these lofty heights of the human spirit —
which so far correspond to the idealism of Fichte —
Schleiermacher, in the second Monologue, descends
into the plains of reality and experience. Here,
however, he no longer follows Fichte as his guide.
Looked at in its relation to the world, the "eternal
self" is not, as that philosopher maintained, the
same and identical in all men ; it is the individual
and distinct shape that humanity has assumed in
the personality of each. This view, that every
soul is an original expression of the ideal human
type, a representative moment in the universal
whole, came to him with all the force of a dis-
covery. " With superb joy I still think of the time

5

66 SCHLEIERMACHER.

when I found the consciousness of humanity, and
knew that I should never again lose it. From
within came this grand revelation, produced by no
doctrine of morals and no system of philosophy.
. . . In the stillest repose, in the most stolid
inertia, I bear within myself, unbroken, the con-
sciousness of entire humanity."

This individuality, distinct from the vast whole
of which it is a part, should ever aim at developing
itself according to its own peculiar disposition.
To be individual, to be one's self, is the highest
destiny of man. " Every one should represent
humanity in a particular way, with a new combina-
tion of its elements, in order that it may reveal
itself in every possible manner, and may give
effect, in the fulness of space and time, to all the
different forms which may proceed from its
depths."

But this is only possible where perception and
love — the two necessary conditions of morality —
are present. Through perception we distinguish
between ourselves and what is foreign to us,
between our own individuality and the individu-
ality of others. But this knowledge of humanity
which we have in sense is incomplete without love.
" Love is the attractive force in the spiritual world.
No real life and no real culture are possible without
it. Without it all would resolve itself into a uni-
form and crude mass."

The closing monologues are occupied with the

ROMANTIC PERIOD. 67

bearing of these principles upon the present and
the future. Though Schleiermacher saw with
sorrow that his generation was attracted to the
outer, worldly, sensuous life, and what it prized as
morality and culture were but dead mechanical
forms, he hoped that the time was not far distant
when men would seek the true life of the soul,
and when all their actions will be glorified by the
power of an almighty love. These genial glances
into the future are strongly coloured by the spirit
of romance, and they must have appeared strange
and fanatical to those whose lives were enslaved by
the present. But Schleiermacher cared little for
what his age might think : he belonged to that
larger era which he and the men of the future
were hastening on. " I am, as to method of think-
ing and life, a stranger to the present generation^
a prophetic citizen of a later world. To the future
I am drawn by a lively imagination and a strong
faith ; to it belongs my every act and every
thought. Indifferent is it to me what the present
world does or suffers ; far under me it rolls on
insignificant, and with a rapid glance the eye
surveys how great and confused is the course of
its pathway."

VI.

LIFE AT STOLPE.

Very beautifully Schleiermacher pictures in his
Monologties the true ideal life which should be
followed by each in the free determination of the
spirit. But it is always easier to point the way to
the ideal than it is to walk in that way. At the
very time when in imagination Schleiermacher
was hewing out so skilfully the block of life,
there appeared in it the black vein of destiny.
While the Monologues were taking shape, a tragic
conflict was being enacted in his soul. This was
brought about by the unlawful passion which he
cherished for Eleanore Grunow, the wife of a
Berlin clergyman. Her married life was wanting
in all the essential conditions of happiness, and
Schleiermacher felt that if this relation were per-
sisted in, her inner life would be destroyed. He,
therefore, advocated as a moral duty that the
marriage tie should be dissolved. Eleanore did
not love her husband, yet a strong sense of right
made her cling to him ; and, although she did
ultimately lend her ear to the idea of separation,
when the time came for taking the decisive step,
she drew back and renounced Schleiermacher for
ever.

68

LIFE AT STOLP£. 6g

It was during this time of mental and moral
aberration that Schleiermacher wisely determined
to withdraw from Berlin and its unhealthy sur-
roundings. This he did in June, 1802, when he
was appointed to the post of Court Preacher in
the quiet Pomeranian town of Stolpe.

Here, widely separated from the cause of his
misery, he was still harassed by anguish of soul.
Instead, however, of yielding to it, he sought to
overcome it, to neutralise it, by intense occupation
of mind and heart. Schlegel and he had, some
time before, arranged to translate Plato into Ger-
man. The work was in many respects congenial
to both; but Schlegel had neither the method nor
the perseverance to enable him to carry out his
part of the engagement. The task, in this way,
fell to be carried on by Schleiermacher, unaided
and alone. With him it was no temporary whim
to be laid aside at the bidding of some counter-
attraction ; it was a labour of love, a great life-
work to which he felt he had been specially called.

It was fitting, then, that during this enforced
exile at Stople, Schleiermacher should devote him-
self to this vast and arduous undertaking. He
needed to be elevated above the cares and the
passions of his soul, he needed the invigorating
influence of the atmosphere that for ever plays on
the ideal heights. The translating of his old
favourite, Plato, supplied both these wants. The
hard study requisite in order to get at his thought.

70 SCHLEIERMACHER.

and to express it rightly, had a quieting effect on
his inner h'fe, and companionship with the most
genial of all the ancient thinkers brought tone and
vigour to his intellect. Thus what might have
proved an irksome task became a bracing mental
exercise attended with an ever increasing personal
and scientific interest. The first volume of this
magnificent work was published in 1804, and at
once gave its author a foremost place among the
best Greek scholars in Germany. Other volumes
succeeded at stated intervals, and, in 1828, the
sixth and last appeared. Schieiermacher was the
first to indicate the method of Plato, and to point
out the organic unity of the various Dialogues.
His version, accompanied as it was by notes and
introductions, not only helped to make the Platonic
philosophy generally intelligible, it also gave an
impetus to the study of Greek speculation. Un-
happily, Schieiermacher did not live to complete
the entire series ; and students of the TimcBus,
the Critias and the Laws will regret that these are
not included in his admirable rendering. Many
translations of the divine philosopher have since
been produced, and that under more favourable
conditions, yet this one, begun at a time when
countless linguistic difficulties had to be sur-
mounted, still remains unsurpassed for painstaking
accuracy, real insight, and true sympathy.

Another important work that Schieiermacher
wrote and published about this time was his Out-

LIFE AT STOLPE. 7 1

lines of a Critique of Former Systems of Ethics
(1803). The Critique is divided into three books,
in which the chief principles of ethics ; the three
great ethical ideas of duty, virtue, the good and the
evil ; and the ethical systems in relation to their
content and form, are separately discussed. The
work, which is the most mechanical of Schleier-
macher's writings, cost him an enormous amount
of labour. He called it his " gravestone," and
more than once he was tempted to lay it aside
altogether. " Alas," he confided to his friend
Henriette Herz, " the writing of a book, especially
of such a book, is a great sorrow ; never in my life
will I attempt the like again ! I verily believe that
all the time I have laboured at it I have not had
one clever thought — nothing but critical shavings.''
The design of the Critique was to lay the basis
for a true theory of ethics ; to do, in short, for
morals what Kant had done, in his celebrated
Critique, for knowledge. That it failed to accom-
plish this end was due to the one-sided principle of
criticism adopted. Instead of looking broadly at
the different ethical systems and estimating them
according to their historical growth and results,
Schleiermacher judged them individually accord-
ing to their inner view, according to the way in
which they treated the laws and ends of life, and
summed up its facts under one leading principle.
Tested by this method Plato and Spinoza alone
escape censure and disapprobation. All the rest —

72 SCHLEIERMACHEK.

especially Kant and Fichte — were subjected to a
merciless attack.

This great, though in many respects unfortunate.
Critique was the only one of Schleiermacher's works
that was badly received. Its style was cold and
heavy as lead, its thought hard and repressed, and
its arrangement irritating and confused. Besides,
the personal element, which added such charm to
his other writings, was altogether wanting. In-
deed, so pronouncedly is this the case that the
author congratulated himself that the personal is
so veiled that it would ba impossible for a critic,
from a mere perusal of the book, to say what were
his peculiar ethical views. It can therefore be
readily understood that the Critique, able and
suggestive as it undoubtedly is, does not constitute
pleasant reading, and that it is the least known of
all Schleiermacher's more important writings.

In addition to these extensive intellectual
labours, Schleiermacher threw himself with energy
into the work of his pastoral charge. He endea-
voured to create an interest in religion by bright-
ening and reforming the church service, by
personal visitation, and by direct catechetical
instruction. Nor was it in his own district alone
that he sought to elevate the religious sentiments
of the people. His contact with church members
in other parts of the diocese, and his fellowship
with the clergy — whom he describes as being
degraded, sensuous, and without spiritual and

LIFE AT STOLPE. 73

intellectual susceptibilities — indicated thai the evil
of religious indifference was widespread and
radical. How to arrest this decay of the spiritual
and moral life was a problem which at this time
constantly occupied him. The only immediate
remedy he could think of — he made it known in a
pamphlet published in 1803 — was the thorough
re-organisation of the Churches. He would have
the Lutheran and Reformed Churches no longer
stand apart, seeing that the doctrines which were
the occasion of separating them had now ceased
to have any confessional significance. He would
have the service of public worship made more
simple, more beautiful, and more ennobling. He
would have none to enter the ministry of the
Church who had not a special call to the office ;
and he would make provision by which it might
be rendered easy for those who had made a
mistake in choosing the clerical life, to withdraw
from it and to follow some other career.

Reforms such as these he was hopeful would
give new vitality to the Church ; but he was
scarcely sanguine enough to believe they would
take place in his day. Self-interest and the in-
veterate force of custom drew, he knew well, too
strongly in the other direction. And yet he often
longed for the blessed time when the spiritual
lethargy which, like ice, bound the hearts of men
should break up, and the true life of the soul, free
and unfettered, should move on in its divine course.

VII.

PROFESSOR AT HALLE.

Helpful as the seclusion at Stolpe was, in
counteracting some of the more doubtful effects of
the Romantic School, it became, after a time,
intolerably dull. The intellectual and social life
of the place was not high, and Schleiermacher
craved, with the old yearning, for true kinship of
spirit. With the returning tone and stability of
his inner life, there came also an irresistible long-
ing to take a new and onward step. But that was
impossible in the stagnant and unsympathetic
Stolpe.

" The invisible hand of Providence and the
action of man himself are one and the same." So
Schleiermacher once wrote, and the truth of the
assertion finds illustration in the present instance.
When he was anxiously looking about him, and
wondering where next the lines of his life would
lead, he received offers of two professorial appoint-
ments. That to the chair of theology at Wiirz-
burg, which came first, he resolved to accept. He
was, however, dissuaded from doing so by the
intervention of King Friedrich HI., who wished to
retain hirn in Prussia. In a few months after-
74

PROFESSOR AT HALLE. 75

wards, he was appointed theological professor and
university preacher at Halle.

No one could be more conscious of unfitness for
being a teacher of theology than Schleiermacher.
Not only did he feel that his position was not clear
or strong in outline : he knew that he lacked a
really scientific knowledge of the field embraced
by theology. Though he had always an interest
in certain aspects of theological truth, the system-
atic study of the subject had hitherto failed to
absorb him in the same way that philosophy did.
But now, with his unfailing energy and indomit-
able courage, he at once set about remedying this
defect. His natural gift of acquirement, his
various knowledge and intimate acquaintance with
the ancient languages, made this easier than it
would have been for most. In a comparatively
short time he overcame the immediate difficulties
of his new calling, and was able to discharge the
duties of his office with increasing confidence.

From the first, he desired to make his course as
varied and useful as possible. He lectured thrice
a day on exegesis, dogmatics, and ethics. The
mere labour involved in such a feat would have
been impossible had he not adopted the plan
of simply noting down the leading thoughts of
each lecture, and trusting to the moment for
suitable language in which to clothe them. This
method, not always successful, became in his case
an eminent success. He had a rare talent of

yd SCHLEIERMACHER.

expression, and, when moved by bis theme, the
freshness, vivacity, and clearness of the spoken
word were even more admirable than anything
which he attained in his most elaborately polished'
and studied utterances.

As soon as he entered upon his duties Schleier-
macher was met with a strong academic opposition.
His colleagues, according to their individual bias,
regarded him with suspicion as being either an
atheist, or a pietist, a Spinozist, or a mystic. For
the representatives of orthodoxy he was too broad,
for the champions of rationalism he was too
narrow. Still, much as he had to contend with in
this respect, the force of his unique personality
triumphed over every obstacle. Before many
sessions had passed, no name in the professoriate
of Halle bore such a powerful intellectual signifi-
cance as did that of Schleiermacher.

The most notable friendship that Schleiermacher
formed while at Halle was with Heinrich Steffens.
He and this distinguished natural philosopher —
whose appointment as professor only dated a few
weeks anterior to his own — entered into the closest
fellowship of life and thought. They shared each
other's views and ideas, and they mutually com-
municated what they knew. For both, this friend-
ship was a distinct gain ; and if the events of after-
years tended to separate them, they could not but
recall with gratitude how much they owed to each
other.

PROFESSOR AT HALLE. TJ

It was while here, too, that he mad.e the acquaint-
ance of Goethe. This most splendid of the
moderns had, as a thinker and a pioneer of the
new way, influenced him profoundly; yet per-
sonally he failed to make the same kind of impres-
sion. He was very friendly, very amiable, very
brilliant, and that was all. There was no true
interchange of thought, no revelation of each
other's real individuality. This was owing princi-
pally to what Schleiermacher describes as a
peculiarity of his own nature : he could allow no
one to enter into the innermost sanctuary of his
being until he was satisfied as to the purity of his
character. Mere brain power, however magnifi-
cent, had no attraction for him unless it was regu-
lated by a loving, human heart. " For his intellect
alone," he declared, " I love no man. Schelling
and Goethe are two mighty intellects, but I should
never feel tempted to love them, and certainly I
shall never make myself believe that I do so."

Schleiermacher's sojourn at Halle was too much
occupied with academic activities to be productive
of much literary work. The Christmas Festival,
published in 1806, is of interest as containing the
germ of his future Christological views. This
little book is written in the form of a dialogue, in
which the principal speakers, in trying to explain
the meaning of the festival of Christmas, are skil-
fully represented as describing the different phases
of Christianity then existing, or perhaps, as Strauss

78 SCHLEIERMACHER.

has suggested, the various forms through which
his own religious thought had passed.

Leonard, the representative of critical rationalism,
opens the discussion by assigning a merely human
and symbolical interest to the festival. It is an
ideal after-growth, independent of the gospel
stories regarding Christ's reputed incarnation.
Consequently this mystic after-growth, and not
'' the earthly personal activity of Christ," has given
currency to faith in His birth, miracles, death, resur-
rection, and ascension. If, therefore, Christianity is
what it is, " a strong and mighty factor" in human
affairs, this is to be accounted for otherwise than
by referring it absolutely to the historical Christ.

Ernest, who next follows, takes up the oppo-
site view. For him, Christmas has a real and
spiritual significance as resting indubitably on the
fact of Christ's advent, " which is the one universal
occasion of rejoicing, because there is no other
principle of joy than redemption ; and in the
development of redemption, the birth of the
Divine Child is the first distinct stage." The
existence of a Saviour is not dependent merely on
historical records : it is a necessary postulate of
man's higher being. The contradictions in human
nature — the contrasts between appearance and
reality, between time and eternity — can only be
resolved by One who, while real man, bears in
Himself the sublime unity of God, and is raised
above all contrasts and limitations. Such a

PROFESSOR AT HALLE. 79

deliverer, such a resolver of the perplexities of life,
is Jesus Christ. In Him, as the Head and
Founder of a better kingdom, there is access to a
new world — a world in which the soul can be
attuned to divine harmony. The essential mean-
ing of the Christmas festival therefore consists in
this — " that we should become conscious of the
inner ground and uncreated might of a new, un-
troubled life, and that we should discern already
in the earliest buddings of this life its fairest
efflorescence, and even its highest perfection."

The next speaker, Edward, is the representative
of the speculative conception of Christianity. For
him, Christ is the man-in-himself, the man behind
the man (der Mensch an sick), the eternal existence
in the process of becoming, the identity of the
divine and the human. In keeping the festival of
Christmas we do then but celebrate ourselves —
that human nature or eternal existence to which
we should ever seek to attain in and through the
fellowship of the Christian Church. " In this way
each of us ought to see in the birth of Christ his
own higher birth, by which alone whatever of
devotion and love there is within us exists ; and
through which also the eternal Son of God appears
in us. Therefore it is that the festival issues forth,
like a heavenly light, from the darkness of the
night. It is a universal pulsation of joy in the
whole new-born world which only those who are
spiritually diseased or paralysed fail to apprehend."

8o SCHLEIERMACHER.

The dialogue is closed by Joseph, the Moravian
type of Christian. The discourses of his friends
seem to him very foolish ; for it is not words but
joy that he feels constrained to utter in presence
of the great mystery. " All forms are for me too
stiff, and all discourse too tedious and cold. An
ineffable object requires or produces an ineffable
joy ; my joy, like that of a child, can only laugh
and exult. All men are to me this day as child-
ren, and they are on that account so much the
dearer. The anxious wrinkles are once more
smoothed away ; years and cares are no longer
imprinted on the brow ; and in all there is the
anticipation of a beautiful and pleasing existence."

Besides the Christian Festival, the only other
literary work that Schleiermacher produced at
Halle was his critical estimate of the First Epistle
to Timothy. This is an acute and learned discus-
sion as to the authenticity of the Epistle conducted
on the principles of scientific criticism applicable
to all literature. The appearance of this essay
added greatly to the reputation of its author as a
critic and a scholar. At the same time, his
rejection of the Epistle as altogether un-Pauline,
and his endeavour to disassociate the divinity of
Christianity from rtiere questions of authenticity,
gave much offence in the theological world, and
helped to deepen the suspicion that still attached,
in many quarters, to the name of Schleiermacher.

VIII.

LOVE OF FATHERLAND.

Schleiermacher's life at Halle was becoming
yearly more useful. His spiritual nature was
gaining in strength and maturity, and as it did it
brought with it an increasing personal influence.

As a professor, he created a new life-movement.
His scientific knowledge, his religious enthusiasm,
his kinship with the modern spirit, and his love for
what was permanent in the old, opened up new
regions of thought and action. Earnest seekers
after truth found in attending his lectures that
reason was never fettered as if it were an enemy to
be feared and not a friend to be loved. And as
they advanced, and came under the spell of his
wonderful personality, they discovered that some-
thing more than the cold light of reason was lead-
ing them along the narrow pathway that lies
between truth and error. The glow of religious
feeling — -the infinite suffusing the finite — God
in the heart— here, too, was guidance sure and
certain, within its own sphere, as that of thought
itself Thus, in their search for the real and the
eternal, they were conducted to it through two
sides of their being ; and when they found what

6 8i

82 SCHLEIERMACHER.

they sought, their conviction rested not only on
intellectual, but also on religious, certainty. " I
am," said he, describing his position to Jacobi,
whom he characterised as " a heathen in under-
standing, a Christian in soul " — " I am, as to my
understanding, a philosopher, since that is the
primary and independent activity of the under-
standing ; but as to my feeling, I am altogether a
religious man, and, as such, a Christian who has
driven out the heathen element, if, indeed, it ever
existed in me." ..." Reason and feeling
exist in me side by side, but they touch each other
and form a galvanic pile. The innermost life of
the spirit consists for me in this galvanic process,
in the feeling of reason and the reason of feeling,
yet so that the two poles always remain separate."

As a preacher, also, Schleiermacher exercised an
ever growing influence. His wealth of moral ideas,
his faculty of applying divine principles to the
wants and events of the time, and the deeply pene-
trative and persuasive character of his words, gave
him a power over his audience which was as re-
markable as it was beneficent in its results.

This increasing power, both as a professor and a
preacher, was, however, unfortunately arrested at
the period of its greatest promise. Napoleon, who
had been trampling, under his iron heel, the nations
of Europe, had in his victorious career entered
Germany with the design of crushing its life and
independence. On the 14th October, 1806, the

LOVE OF FATHERLAND. 83

fatal battles of Jena and Auerstadt were fought
and won, and after the lapse of a single day the
conqueror was in possession of Halle. The town
was given to plunder, the University was sup-
pressed, and its students dispersed.

For Sclileiermacher, scarcely any event more
disastrous could have happened. It left him
without office, without money, without comfort.
His house was pillaged ; his personal effects were
appropriated ; even his " shirts, with the exception
of five, and all the silver spoons, with the exception
of two," were carried away. And, as if this were
not enough, he was compelled to afford quarters to
as many soldiers as his house could contain. In
his case the old prophetic word found perfect
fulfilment, " that which the palmer worm hath left
the locust hath eaten ; and that which the locust
hath left hath the canker worm eaten ; and that
which the canker worm hath left hath the cater-
pillar eaten."

Schleiermacher had long foreseen this calamity
to the German nation, and he did what he could
to prepare the people for it. In the pulpit, and out
of it, he endeavoured to arouse patriotic feeling and
to awaken the sense of nationality that had long
slumbered, or was altogether dead. His strong
Protestant convictions, and his efforts in behalf of
national and individual freedom, placed him in the
front rank of those noble and patriotic men who,
like Stein, Arndt, Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, and

84 SCHLEIERMACHER.

Others, did so much in the time of humiliation for
the Fatherland and her hberties. In this respect,
what a contrast does he present to Hegel, Goethe,
and Schiller ! They, when the evil day came,
were ready to do homage to Napoleon, and to
welcome him as the '' great world-soul." They
had no word to speak to the national heart, no
message to inspire new life or to cheer the de-
spondent : they were simply solicitous about their
own interest, and they fell in obsequiously with
the new order !

Nor was the patriotic activity of Schleiermacher
a mere spasmodic movement which occupied him
while the hour of danger lasted and ceased when
it passed. Like religion, like knowledge, like
friendship, patriotism became with him a reality
which he followed with a passionate earnest-
ness. Till the last, and even when unjustly sus-
pected — as most of the men were who helped
on the liberation of Germany — he never wavered
in his endeavour to form and direct the constitu-
tional life of the nation. He loved his country
with a deep paternal love ; and no suspicion or
annoyance or jealousy could ever come between
him and the deep impulses of his heart.

It was, too, one of the chief rewards of his life
that these labours were not in vain. His disin-
terestedness and consistency had accomplished
two of the noblest aims that any one can directly
or indirectly set before him : the betterment of

LOVE OF FATHERLAND. 85

his generation, and the reconciliation and esteem
of his enemies. He lived to see achieved many of
the schemes that were dear to him ; and the king,
though tardily, at length, in January, 1831, recog-
nised his devotion and loyalty by conferring on
him the Order of the Red Eagle — an Order which,
however, he never wore.

Men have from the earliest times, at least since
the days of Marathon and Thermopylae, crowned
with honour the heroic souls who loved their
country and fought for its liberty and independ-
ence. Even had Schleiermacher done nothing
except what he did when Germany was under the
heel of France, he would have deserved well of
his fatherland, and his name should be had in
everlasting remembrance.

The critical period immediately following the
suppression of the University at Halle was any-
thing but conducive to mental work. That
tyrannous act — almost justifying Schleiermacher's
view that Napoleon " hated Protestantism as much
as he hated speculative philosophy " — rudely dis-
turbed the repose of our author's academic life.
It deprived him at once of the leisure and the
means requisite for sustained study. But more
than that. For the time, at least, it almost ex-
clusively directed the energies of his ever active
soul into a new channel. He had to forsake the
peaceful cloisters of Academe, and go down into

86 SCHLEIERMACHER.

the busy arena of life, with its conflicts, intrigues,
and politics.

And yet, unfavourable as the times were,
Schleiermacher found opportunity, in the breaks
and pauses that occur in the busiest of lives,
for a certain amount of literary activity. He
superintended the publication of his Treatise on
First Timothy ; he published several volumes of
his translation of Plato ; and he wrote, for the
Lite7-ary Gazette, a critical notice of Fichte's ideal-
istic view of the world as elaborated in his Char-
acteristics of the Present Age. Also, the patriotic
sermons which he preached at this time are dis-
tinguished for their vigorous thinking and their
wide and almost prophetic outlook.

IX.

THE PREACHER.

In the days of distress succeeding the suppression
of the University at Halle, Schleiermacher had
been frequently invited by the people at Bremen
to become their pastor. The post was in many
ways desirable. It would free him from financial
embarrassment ; it would deliver him from the
immediate distractions of his surroundings : and,
above all, it would enable him to provide a home
for his sister Nanni, who had lived with him at
Halle, and who now shared his adverse fortunes.
But, attractive as the place was, he felt it would
be an act of " treason against his inner vocation "
to desert Prussia in the time of her humiliation.
Instead, therefore, of accepting preferment else-
where, he determined to remain at the centres
where he knew he could be most helpful. First at
Halle, then at Berlin, he devoted himself to the
service of his country, while he managed, by means
of teaching and literary work, to earn a livelihood
for his sister and himself The times wers hard
for many, not less than for him ; and never was
he happier than when he identified himself with

87

88 SCHLEIERMACHER.

the common lot, and toiled on in the cause of
liberty and of a wider, more hopeful life.

In 1809, this round of civil and social duty,
which was threatening; to change the theologian
and the philosopher into a practical politician, was
broken in upon by a circumstance of great moment
and full of significance for his future. This was
his elevation to be minister of Trinity Church,
Berlin — one of the principal charges in the city.
The appointment not only raised him once more
into direct public life, it afforded boundless sway
to what was always one of the most marvellous
activities of his nature : his wonderful preaching
faculty. Much as he excelled in many directions,
in the pulpit he transcended all his other efforts.
Here he was at his best ; and here his influence, if
from the nature of the case transient and for the
hour, was widest and most far-reaching. As the
place which he occupies in the history of the
Christian pulpit is one of the highest, it may be
desirable to describe with some minuteness his
character as a preacher.

Schleiermacher did not take up preaching as an
occasional mental exercise ; it was a necessity of
his nature — the service that gave fullest expression
to his soul. For forty year's did he engage in
almost unbroken succession in this noblest of all
earthly callings. No sphere of activity had such
an attraction for him, and none so perfectly called
into play every faculty of his being. The pulpit

THE PREACHER. 89

brought him into contact with living men and
women. It called forth his social and religious
instincts— those feelings of brotherhood which
were first cultivated in the Moravian circle, and
which were to him as the very breath of life. It
gave unrestrained scope to the formative power of
his strongly ethical character. In preaching, he
found the opportunity which he always sought, of
influencing the human spirit with its capacities, its
needs and hopes, and of building it up in holy fel-
lowship. Here, taking his stand on the mighty
word of God, he entered into the holiest sanctuary
of the inner life, and he sought to awaken the
forces that had long slumbered, and to make distinct
the voices from afar that everywhere spoke of a
lost love that could be found, a lost home whose
door still stood open to receive the penitent. For
him the sermon was not a mere work of art, a
thing to be shaped with infinite care, and to be
touched and re-touched like the creations of the
painter or the sculptor. It was a living word of
God speaking through a human soul to a human
soul. Its purpose was to stir up devotion, not
admiration ; to bring rest to the weary, to conduct
the heavy laden to Christ, and to show all men
that it is in religion alone they can find their
their purest joys, their highest service, and their
fullest life.

How then, it may be asked, did Schleiermacher
seek to realise this ideal of what a sermon should

go SCHLEIERMACHER.

be in his own preaching? The ten volumes of
sermons which have been published in his name
afford sufficient material for an answer to this
question. The first thing that strikes us in these
discourses is the plain, simple, and direct style in
which they are written. There is an almost entire
absence of the poetical figures and the splendid
rhetorical outbursts that characterise his early
works. Illustration is used but sparingly, and
there is little attempt at pictorial representation
or sensuous appeal. The sentences move on with
a kind of rhythmical swing — always clear and
strong, and sometimes rising into great beauty of
expression and perfection of finish. The late Dr.
Ker, himself one of the finest of recent preachers,
points out a defect which is almost inevitable in
such a style of preaching. " The structure of his
sentences tends to monotony. The periods are so
long, involved, smooth, and harmonious, that short
sentences, even if abrupt, would give relief; they
are like the large rolling waves of mid-ocean that
fold out but do not break with shocks of thunder
and spray. But, with all this, his style has great
beauty and soothing power — of a Ciceronian, not
of a Demosthenic, kind."*

But greater is the content of these sermons than
the style in which they are clothed. Christ, the
Church, and the Christian life, these are the themes

* History of Preaching, p. 302.

THE PREACHER. 9 1

which they invariably discuss. They are well-worn
themes, and in the great common-place preaching
one knows what kind of thoughts gather around
them. It was not, however, in Schleiermacher to
be common-place; and perhaps in no other capacity
is he so fresh and original, so deep and prophetic,
as when he is discoursing of these sublime realities.
The divine love, of which Christ is the incarnation,
does not in his teaching evaporate into a mere
vague and impalpable insincerity ; it is the most
real and practical force in the universe. Its rela-
tions to us and to our future, to the world and its
mysterious struggle, assume here a new form and
become luminous with a new meaning. Christ
Himself, the loveliest of all heaven's messengers,
is represented, not simply in the glories of His
person and in ♦the inscrutable relations of His
being : He is ever pourtrayed as a saving, spiritual-
ising power that has entered into our lot and is
eternally one with our destiny. The Christian
Church — too often the arena where worldly men
act their little ambitions and cherish bitter hatreds
— is likewise here described as the undivided body
of Christ, where each and all are bound by the
same loves, aims, and hopes. The spiritual life,
too — for many so monotonous, and pictured by the
crowd in colours so poor and mean and earthly —
is here glorified as by the touch of a hand from
the Eternal. Little our lives may be — low in
ideal, disappointing in attainment — yet there is a

92 SCHLEIERMACHER.

hope in them, even in tlie lowest, that can never be
suppressed, and that must find its fulfilment

" At last— far off— at last to all,

And every winter change to spring."

Even amidst our present embarassing wealth of
sermonic literature, there are few sermons that are
better worth reading and studying than those of
Schleiermacher. One cannot peruse them without
being brought nearer to the true and the good, and
without being impressed with the nothingness of
all earthly pursuits, in comparison with the grand-
eur of the spiritual life.

As is well known, Schleiermacher did not write
his sermons before delivering them. He allowed
his mind to become filled with his subject during
the week, and not till late on Saturday, or on
Sunday morning, did he place a single note on
paper. All he then jotted down was his text, and
the general outline of his theme. This he called
his " bill of fare," and with it he entered the pulpit,
where the sermon took shape in the direct utter-
ance of his inner thought and feeling. He began
at first slowly, with the wondrously penetrative
and soronous voice pitched in the ordinary con-
versational key. Then, as his subject arranged
itself, thought followed thought in rapid succession,
the words became faster, the preacher more ani-
mated, and he usually ended when the full rich
tide of his discourse had reached the flood. During

THE PREACHER. 93

the latter years — after the death of his dear
Nathanael — he was sometimes, when picturing the
unfathomable love of God in Christ, filled with a
great emotion, and the tears fell down his cheeks,
and his voice sounded like harp-tones from a
higher world.

In the accepted sense of the term, Schleiermacher
was not what might be called a distinctly popular
preacher — one who draws the gaping multitudes
that are here to-day and to-morrow are not. His
manner, if always earnest and impressive, was too
calm and thoughtful for that. Besides, his sermons
were not infrequently so dialectic in character as
to suggest that they had been modelled after the
pattern of Plato's Dialogues. Little wonder, if in
such circumstances, his audience should have been
principally drawn from the cultivated classes.
Schleiermacher himself ascribes it as a strangely
mixed company. "No draught of the fishing net
was ever more varied than my congregation.
Herrnhuters, Jews, baptized and unbaptized, young
philosophers and philologists, elegant dames, and
the beautiful image of St. Anthony, always hovered
in motley vision before my gaze." Yet no one could
long hear him — even the most illiterate, providing
his soul was at all open to religious influences —
without being drawn into the secret of his power.
His unsurpassed improvising faculty by which his
spoken utterance far excelled his written word, the
sympathetic and persuasive character of his repre-

94 SCHLEIERMACHER.

sentation of Christ as the Saviour of man, his ever
clear and practical message spoken " from the
times and to the times," and his unfailing en-
thusiasm for humanity and his faith in its ultimate
triumph ; these endowed him with power to touch
the hearts of men, the poor alike with the rich, the
learned not less than the unlearned. His preach-
ing was for all, because he saw in every son of
man a possible citizen of the Kingdom of God,
and he yearned to set him on the way, and to
conduct him to the all-glorious Leader and Cap-
tain of the world's salvation.

Schleiermacher's power as a preacher is not yet
spent ; for his sermons are still inculcating on
the Church the fact that the real function of the
pulpit is to exercise a creative and moulding
influence upon the form and character of the
religious life. He was no retailer of lifeless for-
mulas, no advocate of schemes that have been
tried and failed. Few knew the needs, the sor-
rows, and the longings of his age as he did ;
and in the name of Christ he sought to grapple
with them faithfully and resolutely. His message
was not a doubtful one — it had in it head and
heart — and he hurled it at the men of his day
as the long-drawn waves dash against the rock-
bound coast. And as the waves wear away the
seemingly so solid barrier, and eat out for them-
selves sunny ways into the wide coast land, so he
left on his generation the mark of his presence,

THE PREACHER. 95

and he caused rivulets of gladness to flow into
many a barren and lonely waste. Never did the
world more than now cry out for such preaching —
strong, loving, triumphant and Christo-centric.
Should the Church become indifferent to this cry
— should it fail to witness to Christ as the only
redeeming and recreating agency in the human
soul — the Kingdom of God on earth will, no
doubt, still continue to exist, in a sluggish and
unauthoritative manner, until it is once more
awakened out of its sleep of worldliness by some
new messenger of the Spirit and Love of Christ ;
but, in the meantime, the Church itself, as a mani-
festing, guiding, ethical and religious force, will
cease to be the true Church, and must take a
place, and that not the highest, among the tran-
sient and secular influences which each age calls
into existence.

X.
PERMANENT SETTLEMENT IN BERLIN.

Shortly after his appointment as preacher at
Berhn, Schleiermacher began to direct his thoughts
to what proved to be the most helpful event in his
career. He had always a longing for the tender-
ness, the sympathy, and the bliss of domestic life.
The union and fellowship of the married state,
when sanctified by a pure and holy love, he re-
garded as the ideal condition of social life — the
condition that develops what is highest and noblest
and most self-sacrificing in the human soul. No
other relation appeared to him at once so beautiful
and sacred, so exquisite in happiness and so
boundless in its possibilities. For himself, though
no sentimentalist — he called sentiment the phthisis
of the mind — he had long felt that he could not
thrive alone. Solitude brought death to the fairest
flowers and fruits of his spirit. " I stretch out all
my roots and leaves towards love. I must be in
immediate contact with it ; and when I cannot
enjoy it in full drafts, I instantly become dry and
withered. Such is my inner nature." He felt,
too, that he drew more closely to women than to
men, " because there was so much in his soul that
96

PERMANENT SETTLEMENT IN BERLIN. 97

men failed to understand." And yet, much as his
whole being had in it tendencies that were favour-
able to married and home life, he had, owing to
the misplacement of his affection, failed to reach it.
But, at the age of forty-one, what he had hitherto
failed to reach, he now attained. In May, 1809,
he married Henriette, the young and beautiful
widow of his friend, Ehrenfried von Willich, pastor
at Stralsund.

Schleiermacher's wedded life was singularly
happy. His home was a sweet sanctuary of love.
No acrid moods, no jars or discords ever disturbed
its peace or marred its joy. The two lived for
each other and for their children. The principles
that Schleiermacher had been unwearied in teach-
ing, and which found special expression in his
Sermons on the Christian Household, were carried
out into practice by both him and his wife, and
with the best of results. Even the last letter which
Schleiermacher wrote to her — written twenty-five
years after their marriage — breathed the same
strong glowing spirit of love that prevailed in the
earlier days.

Only one shadow darkened the brightness of
their domestic life. This was the loss of Nathaniel
— their only son — who died at the age of nine.
It was a great sorrow. But very calmly and
patiently did Schleiermacher bear it. " I know
well that such a wound, inflicted in mine old age,
will never heal." " I made it my special duty, ever

7

98 SCHLEIERMACHER.

since the boy began to attend the gymnasium, to
take him under my more direct guidance. Finally,
I arranged that he should study in my room ; and I
can say that there was no hour in which I did not
think of the boy, or was not solicitous about him ;
and now each moment I so much the more miss
him. There is nothing to be done but to submit,
and to blunt my sorrow by means of hard work.
For battle against it I will not and cannot, and
give myself up to it I must not. On the very day
of his burial, I began to attend to my affairs as
formerly, and life went on in the old round ; only
everything went on more slowly and more heavily."

The funeral discourse which he delivered over
his son's grave, while the tears streamed down his
cheeks, is one of the most celebrated and pathetic
of all his discourses. It is pervaded by a deep
spirit of resignation ; and it finds consolation and
hope only in Him who is the Resurrection and the
Life, and who in the might of His soul prayed for
His children the ever memorable prayer, " Father,
I will that they also whom Thou hast given Me be
with Me where I am, that they may behold My
glory which Thou hast given Me."

Schleiermacher's marriage and settlement in
Berlin, marked a new era in his life. He threw
himself into the fresh channels of activity and
usefulness that opened up on all sides, and it was
now that he gave proof not only of his marvellous

PERMANENT SETTLEMENT IN BERLIN. 99

aptitude for work, but also of his equally wonderful
organizing and creative power.

When the Government resolved to found a
University at Berlin — a step rendered imperative
by the suppression of the University at Halle —
Schleiermacher took a leading part in the work.
His rare educational knowledge, and his perfect
acquaintance with the requirements of the age,
eminently fitted him for such a task. The broad
spirit in which it was conceived, and the form
which it ultimately assumed, were due in great
part to his enlightened views and untiring labours.

In 1810, this, now the most flourishing of the
German Universities, was formally opened. As
was fitting, Schleiermacher was placed at the head
of the theological faculty. His past record, both
as an original thinker and as a distinguished pro-
fessorial teacher, amply justified his appointment.
But if any doubt ever existed on this head, it was
removed by the publication of his Brief Sketch of
Theological Study, which appeared some months
after he entered upon office. This little work is
not only of interest as defining Schleiermacher's
peculiar views, but also, as showing for the first
time, that theology has a distinct claim to be
regarded as a science. It sums up and classifies
all the facts and data of theological thought
under the three heads of philosophical, his-
torical, and practical. Philosophical theology is
regarded as including apologetics and polemics.

lOO SCHLEIERMACHER.

Its object is to institute a critical inquiry into
the nature of Christianity as a form of belief,
so as both to defend it against hostile attacks,
and to assert its true nature and claims. It
thus constitutes the basis of scientific theology,
the starting-point from which every intelligent
student must begin. The next division, or liistori-
cal theology, de3.\s with all that helps to represent
the life of the Church in its different relations and
phases of development. Exegesis, the History of
Ecclesiastical Life and Doctrine, Dogmatics, includ-
ing Ethics and Church Statistics and Symbolics,
find a place under this head. Practical theology,
or the theory of Church government and of Church
service, is the last of the great divisions into which
Schleiermacher resolved theological science. His
treatment of this branch of theology, and the place
he assigned to it, helped to deliver it from neglect,
and to create for it a fresh and deeper interest.

Wide and varied as was the course which
Schleiermacher thus outlined, he faithfully carried
it out in his class-room. He lectured three hours
daily on almost all the subjects embraced in
his sketch of theology as a science. And, as
if this was not enough, he regularly supple-
mented these lectures by others on such subjects
as psychology, dialectics, history of philosophy,
ethics, and politics. For twenty-four years did
he engage in these Herculean labours, and ever
with increasing success. Few have cultivated

PERMANENT SETTLEMENT IN BERLIN. lOI

with greater assiduity the art of teaching, or
have been honoured, as he was, in exciting the
enthusiasm of his students, and in imparting to
them an abiding impulse. He seems never to
have lost the novelty, the keenness, and the zest
that are inseparable from the active pursuit of
truth, for he was always penetrating more deeply
into its mysterious domains. This freshness of
spirit, this almost youthfulness of wonderment,
invested his utterances with an attraction whose
spell never wholly left those who came under it-
To have felt the personal influence of such a man,
to have been moulded and guided by him, was not
only a rare privilege ; it was an eternal possession
enduring, with ever growing vitality, through all
the weary after-days of conflict, doubt, and en-
endeavour.

While Schleiermacher was thus thrilling the
people of Berlin with his pulpit eloquence, and
adorning the University by his brilliant powers as
a teacher, he still continued to take a real and
practical interest in science, in politics, and in
Church government. He was elected not only a
member of the Academy of Science in Berlin —
which has been described as "a kind of Areopagus
in the scientific world " — he was also chosen its
secretary and chief spokesman on occasions of
state. His contributions to the Transactions of
this learned society, especially his papers on ethi-
cal questions, have still a scientific value.

I02 SCHLEIERMACHER.

As a politician, he was, as we have already seen,
one of the most active leaders of the Liberal Party
in its struggle for freedom and advancement. In
this capacity, he occupied several important public
offices in the State ; but whether in office or out of
it, the good of the nation was an interest that lay
near to his heart, and in the pursuit of it he spent
much that was best in his thought and energy.

Schleiermacher's labours in the purely ecclesi-
astical sphere, are specially notable. His litur-
gical battles, his efforts towards the reform of
Church life and worship, and his zeal for the
union of the two great Protestant communities,
can only be mentioned. There is, however, one
aspect of his ecclesiastical activity which, in the
light of present day discussion, is worthy of more
than a passing notice. This is his view regarding
confessions and confessional doctrine.

One of the influences of the Discourses on Re-
ligion, was to make religion and theology fashion-
able. Instead of being relegated to an obscure
corner, they came to occupy the first place in the
thoughts of men. But, as frequently happens in
such circumstances, the new impulse spent itself
in aimless and visionary schemes. Needed reforms
were, no doubt, attended to, but much that was
unnecessary or impossible, was also contemplated.
Among these, the question of a new creed, and the
binding obligation of the old one, held a prominent
position.

PERMANENT SETTLEMENT IN BERLIN. I03

This movement towards Confessioiialism was
regarded by Sclileiermacher not as an advance, but
as a retrogression. It started from the old idea
that a confession is necessary, and of binding
obh'gation, because it is the grouud of the Church's
doctrine and practice, and because it is needed in
order to guard the faith of Evangelical Christians
against the corrupting influences of unbelief.
Schleiermacher shows that both of these positions
are utterly untenable. The present aspect of
the Church's life and doctrine cannot be the
outcome of the theological speculations of a past
age. The spirit of the Reformation — the true
Protestant spirit — is that vi^hich maintains that
there is, and must be, growth in knowledge both
as to doctrine and practice. "What is best and
most essential in our theology, is the noble form
which Dogmatics assumed at the Reformation,
and the active impulse which was then received
towards the study of the Scriptures and concerning
the Scriptures.'' . . " The scientific form, if

it never advances, can become nothing but
scholastic exactness in Dogmatics, and grammati-
cal and philological perfection in Exegesis. In
that case, theology as a mere sphere of tradition,
must perish in its isolation from modern culture."*
But, although holding that there must necessarily
be growth where there is a living faith, he was

* Werhe, vol. v., pp. 441-442,

104 SCHLEIERMACHER.

averse to a periodic revision, or interference with
the Symbols. The very conception of such altera-
tion appeared to him to be contrary to the genius
of Protestantism. "There is in our Church neither
any single man to whom we can assign this task,
nor any valid form of revision in which all can con-
cur. We acknowledge no majority in matters of
faith to whose decision the minority must bow." *

Dealing with the other plea put forward in
favour of creeds — the plea that they are necessary
in order to keep Evangelical Christians sound in
the faith — Schleiermacher is equally confident that
it is not well founded. Creeds are no safeguard
against unbelief. Apart from the consideration
that they take no account of distinctly modern
phases of doubt, such as naturalism and free
thought, they are not even a permanent rule of
opinion on the points which they discuss. Their
meaning is not always clear, and stands in need
of interpretation ; but differences of interpre-
tation give rise to differences of view. Creeds
cannot, therefore, be absolutely regulative of the
Church's faith. All that they can do, as witnesses
to the continuity of truth, is to demand that the
later doctrinal developments be not altogether out
of harmony with the spirit of the earlier. When
anything beyond this is claimed for them, as if
they had the power of stereotyping the form of

* IVerke, vol, v., p. 443.

PEKMANKNT SETTLEMENT IN BERLIN. I05

belief, they are exalted to a position which
endangers the very truth which they are supposed
to defend. It is vain, then, to hope that the time
may come when the Church will only believe what
is formally tabulated in her Confessions. " Such a
time can only come when what is best in our
theology is stifled by creeds, and when all connec-
tion between theology and general scientific culture
has ceased." *

It is in another way than by stringency of creed,
that Schleiermacher would strengthen the faith and
deepen the life of the individual and of the Church.
He would bind those already in Church fellowship
more closely together ; give the laity a greater
voice in the management of ecclesiastical affairs ;
and stir up the Christian activity of every Church
member. Such a living union of heart and will —
and the attainment of it need surely be no chimeric
hope — could scarcely fail, he maintained, to lead
to oneness of faith in those great truths in which
the life of each and all finds its origin and pro-
gression.

Although, however, Schleiermacher attached but
little value to creeds, he assigned to them a very
much higher significance than he attributed to
ordinary summaries of doctrine. The distinctive
feature of the Confessions of the Reformation and
tlie post-Reformation period is, that they mark the

* Werke, vol. v., pp. 440-441.

I06 SCHLEIERMACHER.

Starting-point of a fresh form of Christianity.
Their primary, if not their sole object, is to define
the relation between this new form and the old,
between Romanism and Protestantism. As thus
indicating lines of development, and accentuating
phases of opposition against the theory and practice
of the Roman Church, creeds have an abiding
value, and no one can willingly or knowingly
depart from them, and yet claim to be a Pro-
testant. Schleiermacher would, to this extent,
make them binding and obligatory ; and he even
suggested that some such formula as the following
might be adopted : " I declare that all that is
taught in our symbolic books against the errors
and abuses of the Roman Church — especially
what is taught in the articles concerning justifica-
tion and good works, concerning the Church and
the Church's power, concerning the Mass, concern-
ing the ministry of the Saints, and concerning
Vows — is in complete accordance with holy Scrip-
ture and the original doctrine of the Church, and
that I shall, .so long as the office of preacher is
entrusted to me, not cease to teach these doctrines
and to hold the instructions of the Church relative
thereto." *

Schleiermacher had long contemplated writing
an elaborate work on Christian doctrine. As early
as the days of his professorship at Halle, he had

* Werke, vol. v., p. 451.

PERMANENT SETTLEMENT IN BERLIN. IO7

been gathering material for the undertaking, and
planning the order of its construction. But he
made no haste in giving the result to the world.
He wished the work to be the ripest fruit of his
theological knowledge, and the final expression of
his faith. It was only in 1819, when he was over
fifty years of age, that he set himself to give it
shape. Very earnestly and carefully did he labour
at the task, bestowing upon it infinitely more pains
than he devoted to any of his literary productions.
The first volume appeared in 1 82 1, and the second
during tiie summer of the following year. The
work was entitled Der christliche Glaube nach den
Gnmdsdtsen der evangelischen Kirche im Zusain-
inenhange dargestellt. ( The Christian Faith Sys-
tematically Described according to the Principles of
the Evangelical Clmrch.)

In this master-piece of theological thought,
doctrines are tested not by their conformity to
creeds, or the letter of Scripture, or the postulates,
either of reason or of will, but as thej' are related
to the inner Christian experience. This inner
Christian experience, which is called the religious
self-consciousness, or the immediate feeling of
absolute dependence, is not only the first and
essential factor in religion, it is also the standard
by which all doctrines are tested. In applying
this principle to the facts or propositions of dog-
matic theology, Schleiermacher divides his doctrinal
system into three great parts, (i) The religious

I08 SCHLEIERMACHER.

self -consciousness generally, or the feeling of absolute
dependence. Under this head, the existence of the
world, the nature of the divine attributes, and the
original condition of the world and of man, are dis-
cussed. (2) The religious self-conscious as disturbed
and limited, or the feeling of sin. The relation of
man, the world, and God, to this mysterious fact of
life, is here fully stated. (3) The third part, which
occupies the whole of the second volume, is devoted
to the development of the consciousness of grace, or
the religious feeling as made free by Christ. This
division treats of the person and work of Christ,
the Church and its destiny, and the divine attri-
butes concerned in redemption — the love and
wisdom of God,

It may readily be conceded that Schleiermacher's
system of Christian doctrine is not free from grave
errors. Its view of the Christian consciousness is
somewhat vague and mystical ; Its representation
of Christ is far from being clear or full ; its relation
to Scripture, and especially to the Old Testament,
Is altogether meagre ; and its language is often
obscure and confusing. Still, with all its faults, it
remains alone and without parallel In modern
theological literature. Its dialectic skill. Its artistic
arrangement, its spiritual glow, its strong ethical
tone, and, above all, the position It assigns to
Christ as the centre and heart of religious life and
truth, give it a place that is perfectly unique. It
effected what its author desired it should effect, a

PERMANENT SETTLEMENT IN BERLIN. IO9

reformation in the belief and doctrine of the
Church. Its appearance marks an era in Pro-
testant theology. The modern conception of the
person and work of Christ, the idea of the Church
as a divine fellowship or kingdom, the importance
attached to the religious life rather than to abstract
doctrine, and the thought that the content of
ecclesiastical theology is not fixed and immovable,
but living and adapting itself to the ever-growing
Christian consciousness of the ages, are some of
the results due to the impulses created by this, the
greatest systematic representation of truth since
the publication of Calvin's Institutes.

The Christian Doctrine was the only first-class
work that Schleiermacher published while at
Berlin. The other writings belonging to this
period — The System of Ethical Doctrine, The
Christian Ethics, Psychology, Dialectic, Aesthetic,
History of Philosopliy, Practical Theology, Church
History, and The Life of Jesus — were published
posthumously from his own and his students'
notes of lectures delivered on these subjects. It
is to this fact they owe their imperfect form, and
that they are all but neglected except by the most
daring and indefatigable students of the great
master's works.

Schleiermacher's health was always uncertain.
More than once had he to go down into the dark
borderland of the valley of shadows. But this
experience, however, trying or frequent, did not

no SCHLEIERMACHER.

sour his temper or overshadow his life. He loved
society, and he delighted in the ever changing
beauties of nature. Few things gave him more
genuine pleasure than a long walking tour with
some congenial companion. At such times, physi-
cal weakness was laid aside, and he became full of
life and animation — a veritable child of nature
enjoying its invigorating breath, and forgetting,
under its blessed touch, his infirmities and cares.

In August, 1833, he set out in company with
Count Schwerin for Sweden, Norway, and
Denmark. This journey through the northern
kingdoms was a kind of triumphal ovation.
Everywhere, the glory of his name and work pre-
ceeded him, and he was hailed with enthusiasm.
At Copenhagen, a public banquet, at which all the
national celebrities were present, was held in his
honour. The famous Oehlenschlager wrote in
Danish an ode of welcome for the occasion, and a
young theologian — Hans Lasen Martensen, after-
wards Metropolitan of Denmark — composed a
German song in praise of the distinguished guest,
which was sung with rapture by the audience. In
the evening, many hundred students organized a
torch-light procession, as a mark of their admira-
tion and homage. *

* Martensen, in the first volume of his Aus meinem Leben, pp.
76-90, gives many interesting particulars about Schleiermacher's
visit to Copenhagen.

PERMANENT SETTLEMENT IN BERLIN. Ill

On his return from Scandinavia, he felt greatly
strengthened for the winter's work, and devoted
himself to it with much of the old impetuosity of
spirit. Nevertheless, though stronger in health, lie
was occasionally haunted by a presentiment that
this journey would be his last, "with the exception
of the long one," from which there is no returning.
Sooner than any one anticipated — sooner than he
himself expected — this presentiment proved, alas,
too true !

In a letter to his step-son, dated the 30th of
January, 1834 — probably the last that he ever
wrote — he says : "I have for three days been com-
pelled to keep at home on account of a cough and
hoarseness, which make it impossible for me to
lecture. To-day, I had to go out to a baptism ;
and I also attempted to lecture for an hour, but it
went off very badly. From to-morrow, however, I
hope to go on in the old way. And now, my
dear, God be with you."

Thus it went on for some days. But the "cough
and hoarseness," instead of passing away, grew
worse. On the evening of the 5th of February,
the symptoms changed, and acute jnflammation of
the lungs set in. All that medical skill could do,
was tried, but without effect. He died on the
morning of the 12th of February, 1834, in the
sixty-sixth year of his age.

Schleiermacher had often expressed a wish that
when death came, he might meet it " with full

112 SCHLEIERMACHER.

consciousness, without surprise, and without de-
ception." The interesting account which his wife
wrote of the closing scene, shows that his wish
was fully granted. " During the whole of his
illness" — she states — "his mind remained un-
clouded. He enjoyed undisturbed rest, he attended
carefully to every injunction, and no sound of
complaint or discontent escaped him. To the
last, he was cheerful and patient, although serious,
and as if his thoughts were turned within." . .

" The few precious sayings of his which I have
been able to remember are the following. On one
occasion he called me to his bed-side and said, ' I
am in a condition which hovers between the con-
scious and the unconscious (he had been taking
opium which caused him to doze frequently), but
in my inmost being I experience the most blissful
moments. I am led to think the deepest specu-
lative thoughts, and they are to me perfectly in
harmony with the most fervent religious feelings.'
Another time he raised his hand, and said very
solemnly, ' Here light a sacrificial flame.' Another
time again, ' To the children I bequeath the saying
of St. John, " Love one another." Again, once
more, ' I charge you to greet all my friends, and to
tell them how deeply I have loved them.' "...
" The last morning, his sufferings perceptibly
increased. He complained of intense inner heat,
and the first and the last murmur escaped his lips,
' Ah, Lord, I suffer much.' All the characteristics

PERMANENT SETTLEMENT IN BERLIN. II3

of death were now present : the eye became filmed
over ; the death struggle had been fought. He
then placed his two forefingers on his left eye, as
was his custom when engaged in profound medita-
tion, and began to speak.

" ' I have never clung to the dead letter, and we
have the atoning death of Jesus Christ, his body
and his blood. I have always believed, and still
believe, that the Lord Jesus gave the communion
in water and wine.'

" Whilst saying this, he raised himself up, his
features became animated, and his voice clear and
strong. He asked with ministerial solemnity,
' Are you also at one with me in the belief that
the Lord Jesus likewise consecrated the water that
was in the wine' ? to which we replied with a loud
yes ! ' Then,' he said very devoutly, ' let us take
the communion, the wine for you, and the water
for me (he had been expressly forbidden to drink
wine by the doctor), but we must do without the
clerk ; quick ! quick ! Let no one be offended at
the form.' After the necessary things were brought
in, and we waited vi^ith him in solemn silence, his
face was lightened up with a divine glory, and in
his eyes there shone a wonderful lustre, from
which there beamed, as he gazed upon us, the
purest rays of love. Then, after a few short pre-
paratory words of prayer, he began the holy
service. First of all, he gave me the bread, then to
each of those present, and lastly, he took it himself,

114 SCHLEIERMACHER.

pronouncing each tinne in a distinct voice, the
sacramental words, " Take, eat, this is my body."
So clearly, indeed, did he speak, that the children
who listened, kneeling at the door of the next
room, heard every word.

" Likewise, he handed round the wine, repeating
the words, ' This is my blood of the new testa-
ment, which is shed for many for the remission
of sins,' and, when he had also repeated these
words to himself, he took the water, saying,
' Upon these words of Scripture I take my stand ;
they are the foundation of my faith.' On pro-
nouncing the benediction, his eyes turned once
more towards me, with a look full of love, and he
said, ' In this love and fellowship, we are, and will
remain, one.' He then fell back upon the pillow.
The glorified expression still rested upon him.
After some minutes, he said, ' I cannot remain
much longer here ; ' and, shortly after, he added,
' Place me in another position.' We turned him
on his side. He breathed heavily for a few
moments ; then the life-pulse stood still."

He was buried on the 15th of February, in the
Trinity Churchyard, on the southern slope of the
Kreuzberg, in Berlin. The funeral procession was
one of the largest ever witnessed in the city. All
classes mourned his loss, and honoured him in his
death. The coffin, on which a big Bible lay, was
carried by twelve students — thirty-six of whom
were appointed to carry it in relays. Then

PERMANENT SETTLEMENT IN BERLIN. II5

followed the mourners, the members of Trinity
congregation, the representatives from the Univer-
sity, and the Academy, forming a line more than a
mile in length. After them, came about a hundred
mourning coaches, headed by the equipages of the
King and the Crown-Prince. Everywhere along
the route, many thousand spectators formed them-
selves into a dense wall, and watched the procession
as it passed. At the grave, the Rev. A. Pischon,
his colleague at Trinity Church, and Professor
Heinrich Steffens, his old friend and associate,
delivered funeral orations. Other tributes in due
time followed. But it needed no word, however
eloquent, beautiful, or sympathetic, to call forth
universal sorrow. Not only Prussia, but enlight-
ened Christendom, felt that the man who had been
laid that day in his last resting-place, was one of
the greatest personalities and thinkers of these last
times.

XI.

CLOSING ESTIMATE.

Many descriptions of Schleiermacher's personal
appearance are found scattered in the literature of
the period. That by Heinrich Steffens is perhaps
the most interesting. Referring to his own appoint-
ment as professor at Halle, he says : " I was there
destined to meet a man who created an epoch in
my h'fe. This was Schleiermacher, who had been
called to Halle about the same time as myself, or
a few weeks later, as professor extraordinarms.
Schleiermacher, as is well known, was small of
stature and somewhat deformed, though so slightly
that it scarcely disfigured him. All his movements
were animated and his features highly expressive.
A certain sharpness in his eye might perhaps at
first have a repellent effect. He seemed, indeed,
to look through every one. He was several years
older than I. His face was long, the features
clearly defined, the lips firmly closed, the eye
vivacious and full of fire, the look always earnest,
collected and thoughtful. I saw him in the mani-
fold changing relations of life — deeply meditative
and sportive, jocular, gentle and angry, moved by
ii6

CLOSING ESTIMATE. II7

pleasure and by pain, but ever an unalterable calm,
greater, mightier than any passing movement,
seemed to dominate his being. And yet there
was nothing stiff or rigid about this peacefulness
of soul. A faint irony played upon his features,
the warmest sympathy ever animated his heart,
and an almost child-like pleasure shone through
the outward calm. His unfailing self-possession
greatly intensified the keenness of his perceptions.
Even when engaged in the most lively conversa-
tion, nothing escaped him. He saw everything
that was passing around him ; he heard all, even
the most low-toned conversation. The sculptor
has in a memorable way immortalised his features.
His bust by Ranch is one of the great master-
pieces of art ; and one who has known him so
intimately as I have, can scarcely look at it
without a feeling of dread. It seems to me, at
such times, as if he were there in my presence,
and as if he were about to open the firm closed
lips for some striking utterance." *

It is much easier, however, to picture the little
outward form with its notable physiognomy, its
quick movements, its varying moods, and its

* IVas ich erlebUj vol. v., p. 141-143. IVas ich erlebte is a
curious autobiographical work, throwing much light on the men
and the manners of the period embraced by Schleiermacher's life.
It extends to the inordinate length of ten volumes, containing over
four hundred pages each !

Il8 SCHLEIERMACHER.

underlying eternal calm, than it is to pourtray the
man himself, the rare spirit that dwelt in this
strange encasement. I have tried to delineate in
the preceding pages certain phases of Schleier-
macher's inner and outer life, and the representa-
tion may help to give some idea of the man. Yet,
as one has said, " the accomplishments of our race
have of late become so varied, that it is often no
easy task to assign him whom we would judge to
his proper station among men." Cuvier could, no
doubt, from the character of a single limb, or even
of a single tooth or bone, infer the shape of the
other bones and the conditions of the entire animal.
But it is different in the moral sphere : different
where the range of activity is so wide and the
character so complex, as in the life we are study-
ing. Here there is room for as many estimates as
there are preconceived notions and opinions — the
handy critical apparatus which most men call to
their aid in judging their fellow-mortals.

I shall then, even at the risk of going over old
ground, indicate what seems to me to be the main
features of Schleiermacher's spiritual portrait.

First of all there is his characteristic individu-
ality. One who entered deeply into the spirit of
his teaching declares that " each human personality
contains in itself an eternal idiosyncrasy, and that
therewith a talent is given and entrusted to it by
God, which however much it may remain in many
cases latent or inactive, must still be regarded as

CLOSING ESTIMATE. II 9

existent if men are to be considered as created in
the divine image."* Schleiermacher's name is
peculiarly associated with this attribute of individu-
ality. Indeed, as one writer affirms, it is to him
that the Germans owe the use of the word Eigen-
thilmlichkeit. The stamp of the divine impress
upon his soul was for him a fact, the truest and
greatest of all. He knew that he was superior to
outward forces and agencies, and he refused to be
moulded by them, as the stones on the sea-shore
are shaped and rounded by the action of the never
ceasing waves.

This individuality of Schleiermacher, this asser-
tion of his real self is the secret of his youthful
doubts and perplexity. Truth was only truth as
he knew it and made it his own. To go with the
multitude and to repeat the watchwords of the
day was then as now the easier way. But as he
was true to himself he could not yield to any
authority, however dear or venerable, that did not
speak with conviction to his mind and heart. He
was a loyal son of the Reformation, inheriting that
genuine Protestant spirit which, in all the deepest
concerns of life, listens to no voice but that of God
in the soul.

The same peculiarity of nature, first fostered in
the Silesian solitudes, is also the key to his attitude
in all the developments of his later years. He

* Martensen, Dogmatik, p. 132.

120 SCHLEIERMACHER.

did not regard religion, ethics, philosophy, politics,
and the various interests in which he engaged, as
so many branches of knowledge to be blindly ac-
cepted in the fashion most in vogue ; they had life
and meaning for him only when they had passed
through the alembic of his being, and were stamped
with the signature of his own creative personality.
This is why, in all the higher ranges, he is more a
thinker than a student, more a pioneer of better
things than a pilgrim footing it laboriously along
the beaten paths. His individuality kept him
not only from looking at truth through what
Milton calls "the deceiving glass of other men's
opinion," it delivered him from the equally en-
feebling influence of servile submission to stereo-
typed systems.

On the other hand, opposed to this element of
individuality, and forming a notable contrast to it,
was his almost boundless human sympathies. Self-
centered and independent he might be, yet never
did his life, like that of such prophets of indi-
vidualism as Hegel or Schelling. isolate itself from
the great common life. With Thomas of Aquino
he could say, "Theologus sum humani nihil a me
alienum puto." All that was of human interest :
every form of free fellowship, the family, the
Church, and the State, had a living, personal
fascination for him. The discovery of humanity
— its relation to the individual and to God — its
intimately connected life, and its triumphant move-

CLOSING ESTIMATE. 121

ment — came to him with all the impulse of a new
revelation. It showed him life in the boundless-
ness of its sweep, and the significance of its destiny.
It raised him above the individual with its little
aims and narrow outlook to the vast, palpi-
tating, progressive whole ; and it led him into the
sphere where love, the divinest attribute of the
soul, can find its true scope and development.
Few have ever looked with a kindlier eye, and a
more hopeful spirit upon the conflicting and
chequered career of men. He was loving and
tolerant, because beneath all the striving and toil-
ing and sinning in the human world, he discerned
the aspiration that is restless till it rests in God,
the movement of that inward force which, on
account of its very activity, bears in it the prophecy
of a brighter day and a larger life. " Love," says
Schenkel, " was the inmost source of his life,
whence proceeded all that was greatest in the man.
It made him pre-eminent in the relations of family
life, of friendship, and of genial, social intercourse.
To the dry light of reason it imparted a pleasing
glow. From it sprang his unquenchable thirst for
truth. It gave to his soul that breadth which
enabled him to embrace all the forms of life and
all the departments of science. It elevated his
thoughts, so that in everything he aspired after the
eternal. It also brought him into living touch
with the corporate life of men, with the great

122 SCHLEIERMACHER.

communities of State and Church, and with all the
imperishable possessions of humanity."*

Another characteristic of Schleiermacher's inner
being, was his strong religious aspirations. Religion
was the most essential element in his nature — "the
maternal bosom in whose sacred depths his life
was nurtured." It stood related to him not as an
outward spiritual phenomenon : it was the master-
passion of his soul dominating his every thought
and action. At a time when the common life was
woefully artificial and corrupt, it not only kept
him pure, it made him one of the greatest moral
agencies of his generation. By his efforts, and by
his life, he created a new spiritual atmosphere.
He rediscovered truths that had been lost or
hidden out of sight under a thick crust of error.
He brought his age back to a living conception
of religion, of the Church and of Christ. These,
the greatest of all the world's regenerating in-
fluences, he rehabilitated, and so represented, that
they bore a new significance and power. When
he began his career, it was everywhere the
fashion to ignore the peculiarly religious element
in life ; before he ended that career, religion
became the all-absorbing question both in specula-
tion and in practice. Amongst the forces which
contributed to this remarkable change, the deeply

* Friedrich Sihleiermacher. Ein Lebens — und Charakterhild, p.
575-

CLOSING ESTIMATE. I 23

earnest and spiritual personality of Schleiermacher
must always be regarded as the chief. The greatest
moral genius of his time, he stamped himself upon
the soul of Germany as no single individual has
done since the days of Martin Luther.

But this, again, was only one side of Schleier-
macher's complex nature. Alongside the religious
element, there dwelt a hard, sceptical element.
He began to think by doubting, and the habit
never left him. Strong as was the religious
bias of his mind, not less strong were his
critical and scientific instincts. To the end of his
days, he continued to be the man of doubt as well
as the man of faith. However much he might
insist that religion, as the immediate consciousness
of the infinite, was separate and distinct from
science or philosophy, whose basis is placed in
knowledge, yet the two were in his case not alien
or incompatible. He followed religion with as
much earnestness as if he knew no science, and he
studied science with enthusiasm as if it were the
only object worthy of consideration. Thus it is
that the author of the Reden and the Christliche
Glaube, became the reformer of modern ethics, the
interpreter of Plato, and the perfecter of Kant's
theory of knowledge.

Another marked feature in Schleiermacher's
spiritual character, was what Goethe calls " the
eternal womanly." This characteristic is some-
times mentioned in a sneering, satirical way, as if it

124 SCHLEIERMACHER,

indicated a certain weakness. A more foolish con-
ception of the matter can scarcely be entertained.
The strongest natures have always possessed a
feminine side. The womanly is the element that
tempers the manly, and prevents it from becoming
cruel and tyrannous. Even in the Perfect Life
there was, as a great English preacher reminds us,
" tiie woman heart as well as the manly brain — all
that was most manly and all that was most
womanly." The " ewig zveibliche" was, indeed
one of Schleiermacher's most fascinating traits.
It was as the green turf, with its gentle flowers
and soft mosses, covering the hard, granitic
rock beneath. His clinging to friends and
societ)', and his dislike of solitude ; his love of
purity, and his hatred of injustice ; his emotional,
receptive nature, and his deep religious mysticism,
are all the fruits of this tender and beautiful dis-
position.

If, however, this aspect of his nature was pro-
nounced, the other side was not less strongly
accentuated. In his little body — he was con-
siderably below the average height — there dwelt
a mighty heart ever ready to do battle against
unreality and oppression and wrong. When he
took up his position and his path seemed clear, it
mattered not who might be against him : he held
courageously on. In controversy — and his lot was
often cast in that barren field — he struck hard and
fearlessly. And we all know how he conducted

CLOSING ESTIMATE. 1 25

himself in the time of his country's humiliation.
Wiien kings and princes, the head of the Roman
Church, and other leaders of men, were servilely
doing homage to Napoleon as to a modern god
of war, Schleiermacher denounced him from the
pulpit at Halle, and his students, inspired by his
courage, raised a loud pereat for the despot at the
very moment when the French troops were wildly
shouting in the market-place, Vive r Evipereur !

This grouping of positive and negative qualities
in our estimate of Schleiermacher's character may
at first sight appear arbitrary and mechanical. So
ill a sense it is. The many-sided nature of the
man cannot well otherwise be expressed. His soul
discovered a home in almost every domain of
thought and action. The theoretical and the
practical, the ideal and the real — the two opposite
poles of being — found in him a common centre.
He was ever trying in his own inner experience to
resolve the contrasts of the universe into a living,
harmonious whole. It is this that invests his life
with an almost perennial interest. He never
wearied in his attempt to penetrate the mystery of
existence. The search after life's meaning was an
unceasing delight, bringing as it always did
strength to his thought and freshness to his spirit.
" So long as a man is capable of self-renewal," says
Amiel, rarest and loneliest of modern thinkers,
"he is a living being. Goethe, Schleiermacher,
and Humboldt were masters of the art. If we are

126 SCHLEIERMACHER.

to remain among the living there must be a per-
petual revival of youth within us, brought about
bj' inward change and by love of the Platonic sort.
The soul must be for ever recreating itself, trying
all its various modes, vibrating in all its fibres,
raising up new interests for itself"*

From the first, Schleiermacher cultivated this
power of self-renewal. He was always, as by an
inner necessity, stretching out his soul towards
some new side of existence. Mental decrepitude
and decay were the evils that he most dreaded
in the midst of the years. Nowhere has he per-
haps better expressed this feeling than in the
Monologue on " Youth and Old Age." " Unim-
paired I will bring my mind to old age, and never
shall the spirit of youth forsake me. What delights
me now shall delight me always ; my will shall
remain strong and my fancy active ; nothing shall
ever snatch from me the magic key which opens
the mysterious door of the higher world, and never
shall the fire of love die out. I will not see the
dreaded infirmity of old age ; I cherish strong
disdain for every hindrance that does not further
the purpose of my being, and I vow to myself an
eternal youth." Thus he prophesied in the full
force of manhood, and advancing years did not
belie the prophecy. His life had always over it a
freshness and glory as of the seasons in their end-

* Journal Intime, p. i86 : Mrs. Humphrey Ward's translation.

CLOSING ESTIMATE. 127

less course. He never felt old, for he never stood
still in the stream of time. " By the contemplation
of self " — so he closes his Monologues, and with the
quotation this biographical sketch may fittingly be
brought to a close — " by the contemplation of self,
man reaches such a height that despondency and
weakness need never touch him ; for immortal youth
and joy spring from the consciousness of inner
freedom and its actions. To this height have I
attained, and I will never abandon it. And so I
see with a smiling countenance the light becoming
dim to the eye, and the white hair appearing here
and there among the flaxen locks. Nothing that
can happen shall ever disturb my heart ; strong
even till death shall be the beat of the inner life-
pulse."

PART II

SPECULATIVE SIGNIFICANCE

PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION.

I. — GENERAL VIEW.

The philosophy of Schleiermacher, while not
absolutely original, is very much more than a
mere repetition of the results of the critical method.
It is an independent study of the problem of
knowledge — a study which, although making free
use of the materials of past investigators, so builds
them into an organic whole that the structure
represents an entirely new view of truth. It is
an attempt to discover the absolute unity underlying
all philosophical enquiries, and in the light of
which the most diverse speculations can be har-
monized. In the search after this unity — which is
the never-ending task of philosophy — it naturally
allies itself with the thought of the past and of the
present. It claims kinship not only with Kant and
Fichte and Schelling, but with Plato, Descartes,
Malebranche, Spinoza, and Leibnitz. Its aim is
to reconcile the various differences in thought and
in thought-systems ; to do equal justice to realism
and idealism, sensationalism and intellectualism.
It emphasises the contrasts that lie at the ground
of being, and it endeavours to show how they can

131

132 SCHLEIERMACHER.

all be combined into a unity deeper than either
thought or matter — a unity of which thought and
matter are but the necessary, if mysterious, mani-
festations.

While thus related to all the great philosophical
systems, the speculations of Schleiermacher cannot
be summarily classified under any one of them.
His view of the world of thought has an individu-
ality distinctly its own. It may not be so brilliant
or so startling as many of the post-Kantian specu-
lative systems — and it has certainly not enjoyed
the vogue that some of them have had — yet, for
real suggestiveness, and for the power of adjusting
itself to the development of thought, it is, perhaps,
one of the most significant of recent philosophical
efforts. It avoids, for example, the difficulties
inseparable from such theories as those of Hegel
or of Schopenhauer. At the same time it lays
down the basis for a system of thought and being
which is not so complicated, or so one-sided, as
that advanced either in the name of a pure idealism
or of a pure materialism.

One of the many services which Kant rendered
to philosophy was the emphasising of the contrast
existing between mind and matter. He brought
scientific thought back not only to the dualistic
position first clearly defined by Descartes : he
accentuated in a more decisive manner than that
thinker did the breach between nature and spirit.
The spheres of the two were for him absolutely

PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. J 33

distinct. We can only know one — that which
has its side to us ; the other is beyond conscious
experience, and cannot be known. Between
thought and being there is an abyss over which
there is no crossing. All that we can ever become
cognisant of is appearance : the thing in itself — the
noumenon or permanent reality behind pheno-
mena — is inscrutable and incomprehensible.

It need not be wondered that such a conclusion,
restricting, as it does, the range of knowledge
within the limit of sense experience as dominated
by intellect, was not accepted by succeeding
thinkers. Indeed, the one aim of the later German
philosophy — inspired as it has been by the move-
ment created by Kant — was to remove, or explain
away, the contrasts indicated in his system. The
endeavour to break up the antithesis between
thought and being, between mental representation
and the universal substance, may be taken as the
key to all the subsequent philosophical specula-
tions. The theories of Fichte, Schelling, Hegel,
Schopenhauer, and Herbart, illustrate this fact.
Each of these thinkers tried, in his own way, to
reduce the contrast between spirit and nature ; and
to find an ultimate unity which could account for
both. A dualistic conception of the universe was
for them, as a final result, an impossibility. They
abhorred it in the same way in which nature is
supposed to abhor a vacuum. And yet, in
attempting to get rid of this conception, they

134 SCHLEIERMACHER.

scarcely made any advance towards the solution
of the problem of knowledge. All they really did
was to explain the one side of the contrast in
terms of the other. If they start with the rational
element, as the ground of thought and being, they
either ignore matter altogether, or show that it is
conditioned by mind. If, on the other hand, they
begin with the irrational, as the principle from
which everything is to be deduced, nothing is
easier than to prove that mind is the product of
matter. That is to say, they acted pretty much
in the same way as if they sought to explain the
negative pole of a magnet by the positive, and the
positive by the negative.

Schleiermacher did not, however, deal with the
problem in this arbitrary and one-sided fashion. He
freely accepted the distinction between mind and
matter. That for him was a fact clear and indis-
putable ; and no solution which interpreted mental
activity by material conditions, or material condi-
tions by mental activities, was deemed conclusive,
He could rest neither in materialism nor in idealism,
as such. He was content to acknowledge, in the
widest sense, the truth in each ; but he felt that
to assign to either the supremacy, or the originat-
ing power was clearly unscientific — was, in fact, a
relapse into that very dogmatism from which the
new criticism strove to emancipate thought.

Still, sharply as Schleiermacher defined the
opposite poles of thought and being, he did not

PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. 1 35

regard the antithesis which they constituted as
being absolute and unresolvable. In the Hfe of
each there is a relative unity. We are in our own
self-conscious existence not only thought, we are
also being. The individual ego is the expression,
in the form of contrast, of the identity of the real
and the ideal. The world further represents
another and wider aspect of the same thing. Here
is a unity embracing the totality of all contrasts
and relations. But just because it does — because
it is the sum of the contrasted — it is limited,
and cannot be the highest unifying principle.
This, according to Schleiermacher, must be sought
for neither in the empirical consciousness nor in
the cosmological unity, but in the idea of God, or
the Absolute. In this final identity there are no re-
lations or distinctions, no within or without, no sub-
ject or object. God is the eternal indifference and
neutralization of all the antitheses in the universe.
Of this absolute unity, from which every kind of
contrast is excluded, we can know nothing. It
transcends the limits of experience. It is timeless
and spaceless. It cannot be apprehended either
by thought or by will. Even feeling, or the imme-
diate self-consciousness, fails to give adequate
expression to this transcendent ground of all.
Nevertheless, though it is, from its nature, unknow-
able, it is the necessary presupposition of know-
ledge and of action. It is the basis of all
experience, all consciousness. Without it the

136 SCHLEIERMACHER.

unity of the world would be as inconceivable as
the unity of life were there no individual Ego.
Without it, matter and mind would be for ever in-
commensurable, lying outside each other's range ;
and knowledge and certainty would alike be im-
possible. Without it, in short, there would be, on
the one hand, mere chaos ; and, on the other,
empty abstractions.

The way in which Schleiermacher reached this
result is very similar to that by which Spinoza was
led to the central thought in his system. Spinoza
set before him the perfecting of the Cartesian
doctrine by reducing the opposed substances of
thought and extension into one substance of which
thought and extension were the two necessary
attributes. Schleiermacher, starting with the
antithesis of thought and being — which had, again,
been brought into prominence by the critical
philosophy — tried to reach the unifying principle
presupposed by each, and demanded by a consistent
theory of knowledge. The one developed Cartesian-
ism in the line of its logical issues ; the other did
the same thing for Kantianism. They both sought
for the entity at the ground of appearance and
reality, and they both found it in the same idea—
the idea of God.

This resemblance between the aim and results
of these two great thinkers has given rise to the
charge that the philosophy of the one is only a
kind of spiritualized representation of the other.

PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. 1 37

This charge, which was made early, and was
popularised by Strauss, has been often repeated
since, and that by those who have evidently
not inquired into its truth. Schleiermacher
himself, who was, from his wide knowledge, tlie
best witness in such a case, repudiated, in the
strongest terms, the assertion that his system was
identical with that of Spinoza. And the more the
philosophies of the two are compared, the more
clearly will it appear how widely they differ. God,
the world and man, and their mutual relations, are
the ideas peculiar to each ; yet the meaning which
they severally assign to them is fundamentally
distinct. Spinoza defines God as the infinitely
absolute being, or substance, which is the imma-
nent and necessary cause of all things. He makes
no distinction between God and Nature ; and the
world is merely a mode of the divine being. The
absolute substance, with its attributes and modes,
whether it be taken as conscious or uncon.scious, as
abstract or real, is the One and All, moving for
ever blindly in its separate lines of thought and
extension, from higher to lower, the one to the
many, the existent to the non-existent. Schleier-
macher, on his part, does not conceive the Absolute
as entering into, and constituting, the existence of
all finite things. God is not simply represented as
either the highest Power or Causality ; neither is
He called substance, nature, or Natura naturans.
He and the world are distinct ; yet they are not to

138 SCHLEIERMACHER.

be separated. God is immanent in the world, as
the unity of all the contrasts that exist in time and
space ; but He is also the transcendental basis,
timeless and spaceless, which makes these contrasts
of the real and ideal possible. In the Glaubeiislehre
this relation between God and the world is further
described as corresponding to creation and preser-
vation. Again, in Spinoza's view, thought and
extension are essential attributes of substance,
existing as distinct and without cau-al relation.
In Schleiermacher's system, thought and extension
are not regarded as attributes existing apart and
without causal relation : they are real contrasts
that can act upon each other, and modify each
other. Extension without intellect is nothing,
and intellect without extension is nothing. It is
as the one is related to, and acts upon, the other,
that there can be any knowledge, any certainty.
It is as reason brings order, differentiation, and
light into the vague, chaotic multiplicity of finite
things that there can be an intelligible world.
Matter, as the organic stimulus, is naturally the
prius ; but, in the self-conscious life of man, the
real primacy must ever be assigned to reason.
What Schleiermacher found was not matter and
mind asserting themselves, each necessarily and
apart ; but matter and mind existing, as if by a
pre-ordained harmony, for each other, and acting
upon one another ; yet so related, and so acting,
that there is an ever-increasing supremacy of

PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. I 39

reason over matter, the intellectual over the
organic. The individual, he maintained, was a
self-determining, self-authenticating product of the
creative reason — the image of God, the mirror of
the universe, the midpoint and centre of finite
being. Here, in man's rational will, he discovered
not only a sure basis for the ethical, but the true
explanation of the entire cosmical process. In
Spinoza's thought, the individual, as a mode of
substance, is nothing but a necessary sequence, a
mere accident ; a passing wave on the universal
sea of being, appearing for a moment, then sinking
into the depths whence it arose. In Schleier-
macher's system, man, instead of being a necessary
accident, like everything else in nature, is the
ethical end, the teleological goal of the universe.
Thus, although Schleiermacher has many points in
common with Spinoza, it is impossible to equate
his position, either in philosophy or in theology, in
terms of Spinoza, as Strauss had early attempted,
and as Professor Otto Pfleiderer has more recently
tried to do.* Spinoza, notwithstanding the decided

* yu/d. The Development of 'I heology in Germany Since Kant,
pp. 1 10-120, where this effort to re-translate the leading principles
of Schleiermacher into the formulce of Spinoza is much more pro-
nounced than in the earlier work by the same author on The
Philosophy of Religion.- The more recent estimate seems to indi-
cate,- on the part of Professor Pfleiderer, a certain lack of apprecia-
tion, not only of the several stages in Schleiermacher's mental
development, but of the distinct and individual place he occupies
in the history of philosophical and religious thought.

I40 SCHLEIERMACHER.

issues raised by his system, does not get beyond
the old, dogmatic duah'sm of Descartes. Schleier-
macher, on the contrary, though deeply penetrated
by the Spinozistic spirit, is a true representative
of the modern critical philosophy. While refusing
to ignore the plains of realism — and here we see his
kinship with Plato, Spinoza, and Leibnitz — he
nevertheless stood on the heights occupied by Kant,
Fichte, Jacobi, and Schelling. The task he set
before him was to discover the unifying principle
at the base of all contrasts, the real not less than
the ideal ; and, in the quest of this principle —
whatever we may think of the final result — he
helped to enlarge and correct the prevailing
philosophy, created by Kant, in two of its most
important positions : its theory of knowledge, and
its idea of the ethical.

II. — STARTING-POINT AND SCOPE OF THEORY OF
KNOWLEDGE.

SCHLEIERMACHER starts, in his analysis of know-
ledge, with thought {Denken) as a given fact.
This is for all the most certain and the clearest
phenomenon of mental experience — a phenomenon
whose existence requires no proof. Whenever
mind and matter, the inner and the outer, are
brought into relation there, as a necessary result,
thought is produced. How this conscious state —

PHILOSOPtllCAL rOSITION. 141

this new condition different from both mind and
matter — originates, he does not attempt to
show. There may be — it is almost certain
there is — a point in the development of human
Hfe where all is chaos ; and where men are
immediately one with every form of exist-
ence. But of such a stage of undetermined
manifoldness, we can know nothing ; for thought
only comes into existence when the I and the not
I, the one and the many, are consciously dis-
tinguished. It is then that outward objects,
affecting the senses, leave a more or less vivid
impression, and that this impression is seized
upon by the intellectual activity, and converted
into thought or language — for the two are really
one and the same. Only at this stage, when sense
impressions become transformed into concepts,
expressed or unexpressed, is the mysterious pro-
cess of the genesis of thought completed. Lan-
guage is thus, according to Schleiermacher, not
only identical with thought ; it is the first definite
evidence of its existence.*

But important as thought is, it is not the only
form of mental or conscious activity ; in addition

* Vide, Psychologic, hrsg. von George, 1864, pp. 132-182, for a
singularly suggestive discussion on the identity of thought and
language. This view has more recently been advocated, among
others, by Helmholtz, Taine, and Max Milller. In Greek and
Italian, speech and reason are expressed by the same word :
6 X670S, il discorso.

142 SCHLEIERMACHER.

to it, there are the activities of will and of feeling.
These are not separate faculties, which act each in
its own independent sphere ; they are manifesta-
tions of the one common activity of mind. Will
has its intellectual as well as its volitional side ;
for he who does not know what to will can only
will imperfectly. Yet, though will is thought, it
differs from thought principally in its direction.
In will, there is a movement from within outward ;
in thought, the movement is leversed. In the
one, the outer world is acted upon by the conscious
subject ; in the other, the outer world acts upon
the conscious subject. Feeling, too, is not specifi-
cally distinct from thought, as if it were an
absolutely new capacity. It is, in fact, the
harmony of thought and will, the element in
which both become relatively one. Only in feel-
ing, can there be for us an identity of these other-
wise antithetic and all comprehensive factors of
life.

Corresponding to these great movements of the
human intellect, or consciousness, are the lines
which Schleiermacher lays down in his investiga-
tion of the problem of knowledge. His critique is
not simply a critique of reason, as such, but of
reason in active manifestation. It is not a single
but a triple analysis. He traverses the entire
course marked out by Kant ; and he sums up in
one whole, the result of his findings.

He first analyses thought in the hope of dis-

PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. 1 43

covering the " transcendent ground " of the real
and the ideal* All that he finds here is the pre-
supposition of its existence, as the explanation of
thought and being, the nexus, without which mind
and matter must remain apart and inexplicable.
He next subjects will to a similar scrutiny. But,
instead of will yielding a result different from what
thought yields, Schleiermacher proves that its
conclusions are exactly similar. Will, he main-
tains, possesses no reality, no content, that thought
does not already possess. Finding in neither the
transcendent unity which he knew must exist — if
knowledge is not to be altogether chaotic and
illusive — he sets out once more in the path of
investigation. This time, in his analysis of feeling,
he meets with more success. In the form of
feeling, known as " immediate self-consciousness,"
he finds that the idea of God is immediately given ;
and he consequently concludes that the "indwell-
ing being of God" is the final principle both of
knowledge and of volition.

In thus taking thought, or the empirical con-
sciousness in active process, as the starting-point
of his investigation, Schleiermacher accepts the
conclusion that all knowledge of reality is limited
by experience. But his empiricism is much more
comprehensive than that of Kant. For him

* "Transcendent" and "transcendental " are used by Schleier-
macher as interchangeable words.

144 SCHLEIERMACHER.

thought and will stood exactly on the same plane.
On this account he rejected the leading results of
the Critique of Practical Reason. Will cannot, any
more than thought, find, or postulate, God. That
predicate of all thought and being lies "behind
the veil." It is unique. It can neither be willed
nor known. It must simply be accepted as the
necessary principle of real knowledge — of volition
not less than of intelligence.

The philosophy of Schleiermacher is principally
contained in his Dialectic, Psychology, and Esthe-
tics. The Dialectic is divided into two parts, the
Transcendental which considers the idea of know-
ledge generally, and the Technical, or Formal part,
which regards the same idea in movement, or in
the process of construction. This work is of tiie
utmost value as explaining Schleiermacher's fun-
damental philosophical conceptions. The Psycho-
logy must also be studied, if one would obtain an
intelligent view of his ideas regarding body and
soul, the activities of sense and of thought, the
function of consciousness in relation to the Ego
and the non-Ego, and such like. It is full of large,
illuminating thoughts, and the study of it forms a
bracing and healthful discipline. The ^Esthetic,
though dealing with Art, in its principles and in
its relation to Ethics, incidentally explains many
points in Schleiermacher's peculiar view of self-
consciousness, and its connection with the material
world.

PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. I45

The present representation of Sclileiermacher's
theory of knowledge is based on the Dialectic.
This imparts to the study a unity which it might
otherwise lack. When, however, the Psychology
or the JEsthetic helps to illustrate, or to supple-
ment the Dialectic, they are either quoted, or
reference is made to them.

in, — CRITERIA OF KNOWLEDGE.

Knowledge ( Wissen) is thought ; but it is
thought of a clearly defined nature. Free or
arbitrary thought, as when one forms the concep-
tion of a griffin or a fairy, has no title to be called
knowledge. It does not set forth anything really
existing in being ; it is a creation purely subjec-
tive and indeterminate. The same thing holds
good of the images built up in sleeping or waking
dreams. However vivid these may be, they have
no real object corresponding to them. They are
the accidental products of the intellectual activity,
and cannot be classed among the normal facts of
cognition. The wide range of thought, known as
religions, must also be placed in the same category.
Its scope lies entirely outside the field of know-
ledge. Religion, in its various forms, takes to do
with the individual, whether a person or a com-
munity, as determined by feeling ; whereas know-
ledge occupies itself with reason and with being —
10

146 SCHLEIERMACHER.

quantities that have not an individual, but a
universal significance.*

Schleiermacher did not, however, attempt — in
seeking to distinguish between knowledge and the
products of fancy, imagination, and faith — to
compare, in a general way, every phase of
thought so as to mark off what is knowledge
from what is not knowledge. Instead of enter-
ing upon such an endless task, he sought to
define knowledge according to its fundamental
characteristics ; and, in this way, to draw a
line, clear and distinct, between the thought that
is knowledge and the thought that is not know-
ledge. The characteristics he enumerates are two :
(i) Knowledge is that type of thought which is
produced in a uniform manner by all thinking sub-
jects ; and (2) Knowledge is that type of thought
which must correspond to being (Sein).'\ These
criteria, the one conditioned by the other, are re-
garded as embracing all that is most essential and
distinctive in knowledge.

I. The first of these criteria — that which de-
mands the uniformity of the production of thought
— raises knowledge at once above the individual
to the universal self-consciousness. Man, as
thinking, must, no doubt, begin, in the first in-
stance, with personal experience ; but rrxan, as

' Dialekiik, hrsg. von Jonas, pp. 109-110 ; Psychologic, p. 12.
\ Dial., pp. 43, 316, 386, 484, etc.

PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. 147

knowing, must be considered as an individual of
the race ; and his knowledge is only knowledge as
it is related to the uniform cognition of all indi-
viduals. What we may think in a merely par-
ticular or singular way may or may not be true ;
but it is not knowledge : it is opinion. One can
only be said to know anything when he has the
conviction that all think regarding it as he thinks.
Given a certain object to be known ; all, who are
capable of having any knowledge of it, must not
only know it as it is, but must obtain their know-
ledge of it in precisely the same manner. That is,
the thinking process is identical in all, and the re-
sults of such a process must necessarily be the
same for all.

This criterion of knowledge is really founded on
the identity in all of the elements that are at the
root of knowledge — the elements that constitute
its typical form and content. These, on the one
side, are the activities of intellect, or the reason ;
and, on the other, the system of sense impressions,
or the organic function. In the building up of
knowledge, these two co-related factors are uni-
versal. They are the same, and they act in the
same way, in the case of every rational being.
Viewed in this light, knowledge " is that kind of
thought which is the product of the reason and of
the organization in their universal type." *

* Dial., p. 47.

148 SCHLEIERMACHER.

Knowledge is, therefore, not the isolated and
fragmentary view of a single individual looking
out upon the world ; it is the common view of the
race. It is what all men think. As contrasted
with the crudity of personal opinion it is what
might be called scientific thought. It is what is
true for all ; because it has its ground in the per-
manent laws of the human reason and of organic
being. As such, it is — although not absolutely
perfect — something very different from partial or
accidental knowledge. It is the agreement of
ideas with ideas. It is that which renders the
historical development of thought possible. With-
out it there could be neither certainty nor advance
in the process of thinking.

It may, indeed, be objected that this char-
acteristic of knowledge is defective in that it
applies as readily to a universal system of error as
to a universal system of truth. Men have, in the
course of the ages, accepted as true many ideas
which were afterwards proved not to be in accord-
ance with reality. In the pre-Copernican times,
for example, utterly erroneous notions as to the
form of the earth and the course of the sun were
universally believed. If, however, no amount of
consensus in such cases can be taken as normative
and final, it may be concluded that the principle of
the universality of thought fails to bring with it
certainty as to truth or I'eality ; and must, conse-

PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. I49

quently, be rejected as not an absolutely trust-
worthy criterion.

This objection would, no doubt, be perfectly
valid, if the test of the universality of thought were
the only test of knowledge ; or if it stood alone.
But Schleiermacher is specially careful to show
that it must not be so understood. He declares
that the two characteristics, " the uniformity of the
production of thought and the identity of the same
with being, only constitute knowledge when taken
together. If any one thinks about a thing as it
really is, there is truth in such a thought. Still if
he has not along with the thought the conscious-
ness that all men must think as he thinks, he in
fact knows nothing. Again, if we could conceive
it possible that all men should formulate in the
same manner a thought which, nevertheless, did
not correspond to being, such a thought could not
be knowledge, but universal error. Or, on the
other hand, even if thought really agreed with
being, but did not possess, in living manifestation,
subjective uniformity, it would not be knowledge,
but a correct opinion." *

2. Schleiermacher's second criterion — which re-
quires the correspondence of thought with being —
is, however, something more than a mere supple-
ment to the first ; it is the fundamental character-
istic of knowledge. In knowledge it is a necessity

* Dial. , p. 44.

150 SCHLEIEKMACHER.

of the universal consciousness that there be not
only a thought but an object of thought. This
object of thought must not be confounded with the
thought itself, or with any of its modifications. It
is Tiot "ideas existing in the mind, or impressions,
or phenomena, or qualities of matter : it is being ;
it is what Kant, using a somewhat barbarous
phraseology, described as thing-in-itself* The
separation of thought and being is tlius the first
necessary presupposition of knowledge. But, as
necessary as it is that thought and being should
have a separate existence, so necessary is it that,
in every act of knowledge, the one should con-
sciously correspond with the other. What is given
on the side of being, as undeterminate manifoldness,
must coincide with what appears in thought, under
the form of unity and plurality. While the two
factors are, as Sigwart expresses it, " independent
of each other, they yet exist for each other, in the
whole and in the individual, so that the totality of
what is perceived is the same as the totality of
thought, and the outer substance corresponds in
every particular to the inner form." f In other
words, the world as interpreted by intellect is the
world as it is. Knowledge is not purely subjective,or
the creation of one's individual brain ; it is thought

* Schleiermacher always translates Ding-aH-sich, or thing-in-
itself, as Sem^ or being.

i /alirbikher/ur Deutsche Theologie, ii., 294.

PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. 151

corresponding to what has objective existence.
Where there is no such correspondence — as when
one thinks of a centaur or a wraith — there can be
no knowledge. Even as there can be no shadow
without a substance, so there can be no thought
without an object.*

Being, it may here be noticed, is used by
Schleiermacher in a twofold sense, according to
the manner in which it is apprehended. If the
knowledge of it comes from without — if it is
conveyed to the mind through impressions and
perceptions — it may be defined as that which
exists outside our thought and which can affect
the sensory system. It is that which, not origina-
ting in intellect, has yet the power of so influencing
our organism as to enter into thought. It is, in
short, the aggregate of external objects — the outer
universe — all that exists in time and space.

If, on the other hand, our knowledge of being
comes not from without but from within, if it
comes from thought, finding expression in the
determination and activity of the will, it may be
defined as "thinking, human being, or intelligence."
It is that inner, rational being, which can act upon
and modify outer objects. It is ethical, as con-
trasted with physical, being. It is what exists
within us — that which we are — and which can

' Dial., pp. 48-57, 183-184, 386, 484-488.

152 SCHLEIERMACHER.

become the object of thought, not less than the
form of being that is without.

Distinct as these aspects of being may seem, not
only as to our knowledge of them, but as to their
nature, the distinction is more apparent than real.
" There is no difference between the knowledge
that we have concerning our inner life movements,
and that which we have concerning what has its
being outside of us. Consequently, the twofold
being to which this knowledge corresponds is not
different ; that is, being which is object of thought,
in as far as it becomes will, is not different from
being which is object of thought, in so far as it
proceeds from perception. Indeed, the two taken
together constitute the totality of being, even as
they also constitute the totality of knowledge." *
Physical and ethical being are quantitatively
different ; qualitatively they are the same. Both
forms exist for thought ; and we know them pre-
cisely in the same way. But, although thought
corresponds as well to the being without as to the
being within, Schleiermacher, in his theory of
knowledge, invariably uses the word in the first of
these senses, as signifying what lies outside of the
conscious mind.

That thought corresponds to being is a proposi-
tion which is apparently incongruous and im-
possible. Thought and being are quantities so

* Dial. , p. 49.

PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. I 53

opposite as to seem absolutely heterogeneous and
incommensurable. How then can there be any
correspondence or unity between them ?

Schleiermacher answers this question by a direct
appeal to the facts of consciousness. There
thought and being are immediately given. At the
same moment we are both, and we cannot be
otherwise. The intellectual and the organic — that
which thinks and that which is the object of thought
— are implied in every act of self-consciousness.
We are never pure thought, any more than we are
pure being : our empirical self, or Ego, is always
the result or the combination of the two. " We
are something more," Schleiermacher affirms,
" than mere thought, and all that we are thus
otherwise, nay, even thought itself, can become for
us the object of thought. Now, if we call that
concerning which we think being, we are at once
being and thought."*

This does not after all, it may be said, carry us
far. Self-consciousness gives subject and object,
thought and the thing thought ; but self-conscious-
ness is simply a process which has its existence
within us. It rests upon a subjective basis — it is
phenomenal, not real. If, however, we would
prove that thought corresponds to being we must
get beyond being as idea ; we must get at it
objectively, and as it is. Is such knowledge of
objective existence possible ?

* Dial., p. 54.

154 SCHLEIERMACHER.

Schleiermacher knew well the difficulty of this
question. Yet, instead of allowing himself to get
involved in abstract reasonings about it, he took
his stand on the ground of experience, and showed
that our knowledge of the objective — if obtained
not immediately, but by a process of inference — is
as sure and certain as our knowledge of the sub-
jective. As soon as we arrive at the stage of self-
consciousness we perceive that we are a unity
composed of the intellectual and the organic, mind
and body. These two sides of our nature are dis-
tinctly opposite — opposite as thought and being —
yet in our conscious life they exist not in isolation
but in combination. At each moment of existence
we are organization as well as intelligence, being
as well as thought. But our physical organization
— and this is the path by which Schleiermacher
would lead us to objective being — is immediately
one with external being. The human organism
and the world without are identical. They are
parts of one whole. If, however, self-conscious
existence is the immediate unity of mind and
body, the inference is inevitable that our thought
must be directly related to, and correspond with,
external being; even as it is related to and corres-
ponds with our own organism. "The correspon-
dence of thought and being is," Schleiermacher
therefore asserts, " brought about through the real
relation in which the totality of being stands to
organization ; and it may be said that all thought

PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. 1 55

is knowledge which expresses accurately the rela-
tions of determinate being with reference to
organization." *

Thus far Schleiermacher, in his solution of the
problem as to the possibility of knowledge, keeps
within empirical tines. He does not enter into the
deep, speculative questions lying behind the prob-
lem : he takes the facts of consciousness as they
are, and brings them into evidence with regard to
the relation of thought and being. The result^
though conclusive within its range — suffers from
the limitations of such a method. The empirical
self-consciousness, if it is the only form of con-
scciousness, can give no adequate explanation of
the difficulties connected with thought and the
world, mind and matter — difficulties old as the first
reasonings of the human race. No one knew
this better than Schleiermacher did. How he
attempted a profounder solution of the problem,
by claiming for knowledge a basis wider and
more assured than that of the empirical con-
sciousness of the individual or of the race, will
appear in the subsequent exposition.

IV. — ELEMENTS OF THOUGHT.

Schleiermacher having indicated broadly the
two distinctive marks of knowledge, next under-

* Dial., p. 54.

156 SCHLEIERMACHER.

takes the particular consideration of eacii, and the
principles involved in them.

Starting with the first characteristic, or the uni-
versal validity of thought, he sets about to analyse
a simple act of knowledge so as to reduce it to its
ultimate elements. In this analysis he finds that
two factors are absolutely indispensable to the
production of thought — the organic and the in-
tellectual. The organic, or sense activity, is that
which connects us with the outer world. It is that
which gives to thought its content, or which sup-
plies it with objects. Without the organic function,
there could be no sensation or perception, no ar-
riving at the being without us, and no real data of
knowledge. It is the starting-point of thought,
the medium through which external existence
mirrors itself in us. In sense the first necessary
moment of knowledge must begin. Apart from it
there can be no perception of objective being — no
realization of the world in its infinite manifold-
ness.*

The part acted by the organic function in
Schleiermacher's theory of knowledge is almost
identical with that which Kant assigns to sensi-
bility ( Sinnlichkeit). In each case the materials
that go to form thought are supplied by the senses.
The mind cannot, in any other way, reach what is
without ; or even be conscious of its existence.

♦ Dial., pp. 47, 57, 387, 451.

PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. I 57

The organic is the medium through which objects
are given — the capacity whereby the affection of
the organization becomes a co-agent in the produc-
tion of thought ; and, without it, there can be, for
us, no such thing as knowledge.*

But the organic function alone is not sufficient to
constitute knowledge. The very lowest forms of
animals possess, in a higli degree, the activities of
sense ; yet they have no real knowledge. The
world is to them a vague and manifold externality
— without beauty or order or distinction. In addi-
tion, therefore, to the organic, there is required, in
the production of actual thought, the intellectual
function. This seizes hold of the confused and
chaotic impressions that come through the organic
affection, and imparts to them unity and plurality.
It invests them with form and character. Even as
the senses are the channels through which objects
are conveyed to us, so the intellect, or the reason,
is that regulating principle by means of which
objects can become thought. The one is the
source of manifoldness ; the other is the source of
unity. The one furnishes the stuff that goes to
make thought ; the other imparts to this vague
and undefined material the specific distinction that
characterises thought. The one, in short, supplies
the necessary complement to the other. " Without

* " Sinn = Vermbgen, wodurch die Affection der Organization
Mitursach des Denkens werden kann." — Dial., 63.

158 SCHLEIERMACHER.

unity and plurality the manifoldness is undeter-
mined, without manifoldness the determined unity
and plurality are void."* In the better known
phraseology of Kant, perceptions without concep-
tions are blind, and conceptions without percep-
tions are empty.

In every act of knowledge the material and the
formal are thus present as constitutive elements.
There can be no thought where they do not both
co-exist, or where they are not implied. The
organic, or the intellectual, taken alone is voiceless.
It can give no message, it can impart no light.
Without reason there can be no harmonising of
objects, without organisation there can be no
intelligence. Organisation can only give a con-
fused manifoldness of impressions, while reason is
the simple indetermined unity. But these are
states outside the sphere of thought ; and their
silence is, for us, as the silence of the dead.

Every kind of thought must then be regarded as
the product of the organic and the intellectual.
This is true even of that kind of thought which is
commonly regarded as having an existence not
derivable from the data of experience. Universal
real concepts — whether physical, ethical, or logical
— though not directly existing through the organic
activity, indirectly involve such an activity. They
are originally based on lower concepts, which from

* Dial., p. 64.

PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. I 59

their very nature possess organic elements. And
the reason why we at all assign a purely intellect-
ual character to them is that we "do not imme-
diately associate them with a particular experience,
but with the tradition of an alien experience which
is no longer fully realised." Universal formal
concepts — which belong to the same type of
thought — likewise contain an organic element.
They can only be thought in as far as they are
related to their content, which content is insepar-
ably connected with organic activity. In subject
and object, examples of universal formal ideas, we
have illustrations of this fact ; since in the one
there is, what Schleiermacher calls " organic
spontaneity ; " and, in the other, what he describes
as " organic receptivity." Thought, even the most
universal and abstract, has a material or empirical
basis. If it had not, it would be unthinkable ; for
it is only in the transcendental sphere — in the idea
of God — that thought, with the absolute exclusion
of organic activity, is possible. *

In the history of philosophy the almost invariable
custom has been to confound the organic and
intellectual moments of thought ; or to deduce the
one from the other. This is the irpoiTov ^p-evSo^
alike of materialism and of idealism. Materialism
maintains that the activity called intellectual is
not only associated with certain conditions of

* Dial., pp. 58-60, 368-369, 492, etc.

l6o SCHLEIERMACHER.

matter, but has a purely material origin. Idealism,
on the other hand, regards matter either as mind
asleep, or as a mere illusion. In the view of
Schleiermacher, both theories are equally arbitrary
and insufficient. Matter and mind are, accord-
ing to him, distinct and independent quanti-
ties. Yet the one apart from the other is an empty
abstraction. He never ceases insisting that matter
without mind is chaos, and that mind without
matter is meaningless. The one finds its realiza-
tion only in the other. The manifoldness of the
material comes to unity in the intellectual, and the
intellectual becomes active only in the manifoldness
of the material. *

This inter-relation of the natural and the
spiritual, of organisation and reason, in all real
thought, cannot be explained by anything existing
in either. It is the primitive and necessary
ground of cognition. And if the distinction
between empirical knowledge and undetermined
thought is to be maintained — if we are to have an
idea of self as opposed to the activity of divided
being, of the world as different from the conscious
Ego, and of life with its contrasted states and rela-
tions — it must be accepted immediately and with-
out proof " This presupposition of the inter-
dependence of the two poles (the organic and the
intellectual), and the relation of a somewhat in the

* Dial., pp. 63, 454, 494 ; Psychol., pp. 9-10, 31-33.

PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. l6l

one to a somewhat in the other, is not capable of
proof. He who doubts it must surrender thought;
since every act of thought really implies its exist-
ence. It is the co-relation of the world and the
thought-activity of the human spirit. The world
expresses itself in the type of the human spirit,
and this type represents itself in the world."*

Although we cannot, however, account for the
necessary combination of the elements that go to
the production of thought, we can indicate its
relation to the highest of all the world's contrasts
— the contrast between the ideal and the real.
" The activity of reason is grounded in the ideal ;
and the organic, as dependent on the impressions
of objects, in the real. Being is thus posited
ideally as well as really ; and the ideal and the
real run parallel as modes of being. There is no
other positive explanation of this highest contrast
but that which regards the ideal as that in being
which is the principle of every activity of reason
that does not in any way spring from the organic ;
and the real as that in being which becomes the
principle of organic activity, in as far as this is not
in any way derived from the activity of reason.''
This highest contrast — which may be called the
cosmological — embraces all other contrasts. It is
the utmost boundary of thought — the sphere within
which knowledge ever moves, but can never tran-

* Dial., p. 457.
1 1

1 62 SCHLEIERMACHER.

scend. Yet this contrast of the ideal and the real
is in itself "an empty mystery." We cannot rest
in it. We must get beyond it to that one Being
from which it, and all contrasts, are developed.
This final unity is the Absolute Being, the identity
of the real and the ideal, the transcendental ground
of both knowing and being. It lies behind all
knowledge, on the other side of the veil ; yet
though it cannot become the object of direct know-
ledge it must be always presupposed as the identity
of thought and being. This unity, binding to-
gether all contrasts, though itself never appearing
within the sphere of the contrasted, is God, or the
Absolute Unity of nature and spirit.*

From the foregoing account of the constitution
of thought, it might be inferred that individuals
can only know what calls into play their own
organic and intellectual activities. Such a con-
clusion, were it true, would be destructive of the
idea of knowledge, for it would break it up into
fragments, so that there could be neither breadth
nor community of outlook. But the position of
Schleiermacher is the very opposite of this. He
maintains that the organic and the intellectual are
the same in all ; and that there can be, in the case
of individuals, a substitution of the activity of
these functions. It is this that gives to thought
its universal character, and that makes it possible

* Dial., pp. 75-9, 87, 121, 461-2.

PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. 1 63

for one to know what has never affected his
organism, and never can. " In virtue of the
identity in all of the reason and of the organisa-
tion there exist among all men, in the idea of
knowledge, a community of experience and a com-
munity of principle." *

This identity of thought must not, however, be so
understood as to leave no room for the mental
peculiarity or idiosyncrasy of individuals and of
nations. This is as much a fact as the other ; and
exists side by side with it. In thought there is the
particular as well as the universal. Men are not
only individuals expressing the common typical
life of the race, they are also personalities giving
expression to their own distinct and original char-
acter. As such, they present striking differences,
both in the form of their thought and of their
speech. These differences — which Schleiermacher
assigns to quantitative variations in organization —
are more marked in the case of those who are
sprung from different races, and speak different
languages. Still, however great the maximum
diversity, it is never so great as to be inconsistent
with the idea of knowledge. The identical char-
acter of thought is never lost, even in those in-
stances where the organic variations are most pro-
nounced. This follows from what has already been
described as the first criterion of knowledge : the

* Dial., pp. 65-66.

164 SCHLEIERMACHER.

universal identity and validity of the reasoning
principle.*

Nevertheless, the very existence of subjective
differences in thought proves that " there is in
reality no pure knowledge, but only distinct con-
centric spheres of community of experience, and
of principles." t Knowledge, in the individual
and in the whole, is partial and relative. Its range
is limited alike by the chaos of impressions, fjom
which it sets out, and by the absolute unifying
principle towards which it rises. It can, thus,
never perfectly correspond to being — for, in that
case, it would embrace all existence — neither can
it be perfectly identical in the empirical conscious-
ness, for, then, it would reflect the entire reason.
It is a never-ceasing! approximation towards the
totality of thought and being. But, from the very
nature of the human mind, it can never be any-
thing else than an approximation which, while
correct and uniform, as far as it goes, is still only
relatively uniform and correct.

The necessary presence of the organic and the
intellectual in thought and knowledge, supplies
Schleiermacher with a principle for the classifica-
tion of mental phenomena. According as the one
or the other prevails, he divides all real thought
into the three following grades : — Perception, com-
mencing with and having a preponderance of the

* Psych., pp. 171-182. -f Dial., p. 68.

PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. 1 65

organic element ; Thought Proper, beginning with
and having a preponderance of the intellectual
element ; and Intuition, or the highest form of
knowledge, in which there is a more or less perfect
equipoise between the organic and the intellectual.*
In this division there is no dignity assigned to
thought but what it derives from its constitutive
factors, and from the various stages of its onward
movement. The classification is a generalized, or
scientific, description of the conscious life in its
development from the unconscious to the conscious,
from the receptive to the spontaneous, and from
the individual to the universal. No other arrange-
ment of the facts of consciousness, or of thought in
its becoming, was possible for Schleiermacher :
starting, as he did, with the empirical self-conscious-
ness as it exists in living process, and accentuat-
ing, consistently throughout, both sides of its
manifestation — the conceptual unity and the tem-
poral plurality.

v. — THE FORMS OF THOUGHT.

That this world, seemingly so real and tangible,
can only be known through certain potential, or a
prion, forms existing in the human mind, so that
nothing is known directly as it is, but only as it is

^ Dial., pp. 61, 372, 454, 498 ; Psych., pp. 70-83.

l66 SCHLEIERMACHER.

for us, is one of the oldest dreams of philosophic
speculatiiin. We find traces of it in all the chief
centres of the world's thought. It appears in the
Indian doctrine of Maya, in the eternal flux of
Heraclitus, in the shadow-world of Plato, and in
the idealism of Berkeley. But the honour of being
the first to raise this conception to a scientific
standing in philosophy must always be assigned to
the immortal Kant. The leading purpose of his
great work, the Critique of Pure Reason, is to
prove that intellect ever comes between us and
things as they are, that it imposes its own forms
on the objective world, and that all we can know
is phenomenal appearance, as conditioned by the
original apparatus of mind.

To many, this view has come as a new revela-
tion, bringing light into the universal darkness.
On the other hand, there are those who, while
willing to follow Kant as a teacher, refuse to accept
implicitly his theory of knowledge, with its cum-
brous machinery of forms of sensory intuition,
categories of the understanding, and what not.
Among these, Schleiermacher occupies a chief
place. Although at one with Kant in distinguish-
ing between the matter and the form of thought,
he still found it impossible to rest either in his
principles or in his results. He refused to receive
the view that space and time are the primary forms
of our apprehension of things — the intuitions a
priori which are the necessary conditions of

PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. 1 67

empirical knowledge. For him space and time
had an objective, as well as a subjective, meaning
— they were the real forms of the existence of
things, not less than the ideal forms of perception.
In like manner, too, he dispensed with the twelve
categories as builders of thought. The categories
were, he maintained, nothing but the relations of
empirical concepts. The notion, therefore, that
they were pure concepts which rendered ordinary
thought possible was the merest assumption ; and
he felt that to introduce it as an explanation of
the origin of the formation of thought was only to
complicate instead of simplifying the problem to
be solved. Schopenhauer, in his trenchant criti-
cism of Kant, characterized the categories as
"blind windows;" and in this characterization
Schleiermacher, though otherwise altogether op-
posed to the conclusions of the great pessimist,
would readily acquiesce. The categories might,
no doubt, give an appearance of symmetry to the
Kantian system ; but as philosophical media for
the transmission of light, th^y were regarded as
entirely inadequate.

Schleiermacher's own idea of the forms of
thought is not only simpler than that elaborated
by Kant ; it is, in some respects, a distinct advance
on the older view. As knowledge, according to
him, can only exist in correspondence with being,
so the only forms of thought are those which
correspond to the forms of being. " Knowledge

l68 SCHLEIERMACHER.

as thought exists under no other form than that of
the Concept and of the Judgment."*

I. The Concept {Begriff) may be defined as that
form of thought which represents the manifoldness
of being as a definite unity and plurality. It is
the combination of the general and the special — a
combination which oscillates between the universal
and the particular, the higher and the lower. This
combination— which is a general or a particular
concept according as the contrasts included in it
are many or few — is produced by the union of
sense and of reason in their relation to the outer
world and its impressions. It is the consistent
whole, or identity, which exists as the result of the
activity of each of these ingredients in building up
knowledge.

In the formation of the concept we have, first of
all, the activity of sense. The great function of
sense is to convey to the brain impressions of the
external world. These it conveys, as they arise,
without order or definiteness. It has no power
either to distinguish, to fix, or to unite them.
Images come and go, according to the infinitely
kaleidoscopic nature of the world's constantly
varying objects. They have no natural perman-
ence ; for each succeeding impression blots out the
one that went before. They have no faculty of
distinguishing or recollecting ; for they are blind

* Dial., p. 8l.

PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. 1 69

and incoherent. Their sphere i.s the sphere of
simple perception ; and the world which they
represent is the world as it stands disclosed to the
consciousness of the brute creature — the world of
chaos and confused sensation.

But, if it is the part of sense-activity to convey
general impressions, it is equailj' the part of reason
to give to these impressions the character of unity
and determination. Reason particularizes the
vague content of cognition. It gives distinctness
and fixity to the indefinite and chaotic manifold-
ness of the world. It separates between one
object and another, between one impression and
another impression.

Reason does not, however, exhaust its function
when it separates and fixes the content of sense ;
it further raises it from the particular to the
universal. It represents single individual images
of objects as the general images of the same
objects. That is, reason does not rest in the
separate and distinct images conveyed by means
of sensation or perception ; it goes beyond these
to higher and more generic images which embrace
the lower and more particular. "There can be no
such thing as a concept until the individual thing
with its difference from its genus or class {Art)
is at the same time posited. The general image
is the image of the class, and the individual image
can only exist when the generic image likewise
exists. The universal image is really the indivi-

I/O SCHLEIERMACHER.

dual image, but regarded as displaceable ( Ver-
schiebbarkeif) ; that is, as being replaceable by
another of the same kind. For example, one
who had never seen a tower, but who had seen
many other buildings, would at the first sight
have no difficulty in subsuming it under the
concept ' building.' The individual tower would
also in its turn become to the spectator an image
of every kind of tower, and he on his part would
have to think how he could vary this image of the
tower without going outside its generic kind.
This, then, is contained in sense ; but only through
the intellectual function is it the general image,
which, however, only arises along with the indi-
vidual image."*

The generalizing of the particular images repre-
sented in sense Schleiermacher calls the " Schema,"
and the process by which it is developed through
the agency of reason the " Schematizing Process."

The schematizing process, which corresponds to
induction, is never, at any one stage, a completed
and final form of the development of knowledge.
Beginning with a particular sense-image, it con-
ceives it as a general image ; but this general
image can again become the starting-point for a
further generalization, and so on through all the
multiplicity of being until the absolute universality,
or the concept of the world, is reached. There is,

* Dial., p. 213.

PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. 171

thus, always in this process something more or
less accidental and empirical. Its results lack
absoluteness and independence. At most they
can only be regarded as schemata, or general
images, in which the organic factor is dominant,
and where the intellectual acts a subordinate and
accessory part.*

This schematizing, or inductive, process is not,
however, the only one that enters into the produc-
tion of the concept. In addition to it there is
needed the process of deduction, which begins
where induction ends. Its course is thus the
antithesis of the other. It begins with the
universal, or the world as unity, and it resolves
this into the great contrasts that are included
therein — the contrasts of the ideal and the real,
subject and object, the intellectual and the organic.
It next shows that each side of these contrasts —
the formal not less than the material — can be
postulated as a separate unity, which can again be
resolved into its contrasts. And so, the process
goes on, from unity to diversity and from diversity
to unity interminably. f

Schleiermacher designates the result of each
process of deduction by the title " Formula."
If, in the schema, the organic is the primary prin-
ciple and the intellectual the subordinate, the case
is reversed in the formula. Here reason assumes

* Dial , pp. 84, 205-6. ■^ Dial., pp. 203, 232-239.

172 SCHLEIERMACHER.

the initiative, and the objective wforld of impres-
sions, which it determines, may be characterized
as passive. Still, although the formula is intel-
lectually in advance of the schema, it does not,
any more than the schema, constitute the con-
cept proper. This, in the view of Schleier-
macher, can only come into existence when the
schema and the formula — induction and deduction
— are perfectly united. The two processes must
run into and complete each other. The particular
must be deduced from the universal, and the uni-
versal must be induced from the particular. Until
this takes place, the separate results of induction
and of deduction are not real concepts at all ; they
are only concepts in the process of becoming.*
The Hegelian dialectic, and the philosophy of
identity, are, therefore, at fault when they regard
the process of deduction as in itself independent
and complete. A deduction a priori, a self-origin-
ating of pure thought, is an absolute impossibility.
The existence of the concept in consciousness is,
then, the definite union of sense and reason. Sense
pictures the world as a confused and undefined
plurality ; reason brings to this plurality the char-
acter of order and distinctiveness. The one finds
its fulfilment in reason, the other finds its deter-
mination in sense. It is only through the coales-
cence of the two that the true concept can be

* Dial., pp. 241, 250.

PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. 1 73

produced. " The first fixed point prior to the
production of all concepts is the presence of reason
as an impulse and the realization of sense as an
influence."

But, although the sensuous is a necessary in-
gredient in the formation of the concept, it must
not, on that account, be inferred that Schleier-
macher supposed that concepts come from without,
or that consciousness is the mere result of sense-
experience. His view is the very opposite of this.
He held that concepts exist in the reason in a
timeless manner, even as the plant is present in a
spaceless manner in the seminal germ. The
reason, he maintained, is the potentiality, the living
force, needed for the production of all true concepts,
the lower not less than the higher. It is the place
of all real concepts in the sense in which the
ancients declared the Godhead to be the place of
all living forces.*

This view of Schleiermacher is not to be under-
stood as if it implied that there were innate con-
cepts in the mind ; or, as if they simply slumbered
in the reason until awakened bj' the organic im-
pression. Schleiermacher rejected, in the most
emphatic manner, the distinction made by Leib-
nitz between innate and acquired ideas, and he
showed that there could be no such thing as ready-
made concepts existing a priori in reason. Con-

* Dial., pp. 104, 106, 413-14, 500, 515 ; Psych., pp. 155-56.

174 SCHLEIERMACHER.

cepts, according to his theory, can only exist where
there is a definite combination of the organic and
the intellectual. Yet, necessary as both sides of
this combination are, the principle that gives to the
contents of the organic, or to sensations, their true
conceptual character is reason. The whole range
of concepts — higher and lower, ethical and physical
— exist in reason, as to their possibility and dis-
position, prior to their emergence into actual con-
sciousness. " This timeless existence of all con-
cepts in the reason, if regarded merely as a denial
of the view that concepts are the secondary product
of organic affection, is the truth contained in the
doctrine of 'innate ideas.' But if it is taken to
mean that concepts actually exist in the reason
antecedent to all organic function, then it is alto-
gether a false notion, since concepts can only come
into being through the union of both functions."*

2. The judgment {Urtheil), or second form of
knowledge, also occupies itself with the interpreta-
tion of being. Like the concept, it seeks to bring
light and order into the world of chaos. Only, in
doing so, it follows its own course and employs its
own method. While it is the function of the concept
to represent being as it is, unchangeable and at
rest, it is the office of judgment to represent being
in motion — being as acting or as suffering. The
one has a regard to the manifold mass of being as

Dial., p. 105. Psych., p. 155-56.

PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. 1 75

a definite unity and plurality ; the other takes this
unity and plurality, and shows how they are con-
nected in the relations of actual existence. The
one is a combination of characteristics ; the other,
a combination of concepts. The judgment, in
fact, represents the relations of individual actions
and things. Its sphere is that of the organic or
the real, as distinguished from the intellectual, or
the ideal — which is the sphere of the concept.

As the objects on which the judgment pro-
nounces are not equally definite, it consequently
follows that the judgments themselves must vary
in character. Some are clear and perfect, others
are vague and imperfect. The nearer a judgment is
to the starting-point of knowledge, as in the con-
ceptions of children, it assumes the nature of what
Schleiermacher calls a "primitive judgment."
Such judgments have for their subject chaos, or
the vast undetermined world, and are expressed
impersonally in the statements : "' it thunders,"
" it glances," and the like. On the other hand, the
judgment that is based on the highest concept —
the concept of the world — is termed " the absolute
judgment." This judgment embraces the sum of
all subjects and all predicates, or, what is the same
thing, the totality of objects and their actions.
Between these extremes — between the primitive
and the absolute judgments — all other real judg-
ments must find a place, either as perfect or im-
perfect judgments. "The imperfect judgment

176 SCHLEIERMACHER.

leans to the primitive, and is more analytic in
character ; the perfect judgment approaches the
absolute, and is of a more synthetic nature. The
imperfect posits the sphere of co-existence in an
undefined manner ; the perfect forms, from the
subject and the object, a joint higher sphere ; and
so approximates towards the formation of the
world-concept, since it always transcends the
simple concept of its subject." Knowledge, under
the form of judgment, is thus a development from
the primitive to the absolute, from the undefined
to the defined, from chaos to the world as idea.*

The concept and the judgment are mutually de-
pendent upon each other. Into the construction
of the concept the judgment enters as a necessary
factor ; so that the higher the concept is the more
it rests upon a series of judgments ; and the judg-
ment, on its part, presupposes the concept, and
attains its greatest completeness when the con-
cepts, on which it is founded, are themselves per-
fectly formed. But, however perfect, neither the
concept nor the judgment can reach the transcend-
ental ground of being. This is closed against them
by a twofold barrier. The concept is bounded
above by the absolute unity of being, and below by
the infinite undeterminateness of impressions, or
the world as chaos. It cannot pass into the one
or the other of tho^e unknown regions. In like

* Dial., pp. 82-85, 261-287, 561-567.

PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. 1 77

manner, the judgment is limited above by the
highest being, the absolute subject, or the totality
of causal relations, and below by chaotic being,
which is an infinitude of predicates without deter-
mined subjects. The theory of Schleiermacher, by
thus correlating and limiting the forms of thought,
avoids the one-sidedness alike of idealism and of
realism.

Regarded as knowledge, both the concept and
the judgment must correspond with the forms of
being. The uniform production of thought pre-
supposes, as we have seen, the identity in all of the
reasoning principle ; it is to the same cause that
we must attribute the universal uniformity of the
production of the concepts. Though the concepts
only come into existence through the medium of
sense-activity, yet they exist timelessly in the
reason. "Wherever there is knowledge, the system
of concepts constituting this knowledge must exist
in a timeless way in the all-indwelling reason."
The concepts are grounded timelessly in reason in
the same way in which plants may be said to be in
the seed-germ ; only in the one case we have an
event taking place in space, in the other a fact
existing in a spaceless manner.

But, in addition to this sameness of the intel-
lectual process, another explanation of the uni-
formity of the production of concepts is to be
found in the correspondence of the forms of the
concept with the forms of being. The essential

178 SCHLEIERMACHER.

contrasts of the higher and the lower, the universal
and the particular — which are indispensable to the
building up of the concept — occur also in being.
Here they are present as the substantial forms of
force and phenomenon, which are related to each
other as the universal to the particular. The con-
cept, therefore, corresponds to being in virtue of
these permanent forms — the higher concept an-
swering to force, and the lower to the phenomena
of force.*

The judgments are likewise produced similarly
in all, and correspond to being ; but in both of
these respects there is a difference between them
and the concepts. The universal uniformity of
judgments is caused, not by the identity either
of the intellectual or of the material process —
though, in a certain sense, these are necessary to
every judgment — but by the sameness of the rela-
tion between the organic function and external
being as embracing the sum of organic movement.
This relation expresses the truth in the doctrine of
an outer world, the same for all ; and from which
each, according to the activity of his reason, de-
velops his own system of judgments.!

There is also a difference between the judgment
and the concept in the way in which they are
related to being. While the concept answers to
being as such, the judgment corresponds to things

* Dial., pp. IU-II2, Ii5. \ Dial., pp. 122-124.

PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. 1 79

in their co-existence, or to individual being. In
the one we have being as permanent, in the other
as in a state of flux. The concept expresses being
in the form of force and its appearance, whereas
the judgment represents the same being in the
form of particular objects and their actions. " All
finite being constitutes a system of causes and
effects as well as a system of substantial forms,
and it is the same being which corresponds to
the form of the concept and to the form of the
judgment." *

Schleiermacher further distinguishes between the
concept and the judgment according to the two
dominating forms which they assume. " Know-
ledge, in its two great aspects, has the same
object, and it is, as to its form, only relatively
contrasted. When the conceptual form predomin-
ates, and judgment is only present as its necessary
condition, we have speculative knowledge. But
when the form that is supreme is judgment, and
the concept appears simply as an indispensable
requisite, the result is empirical or historical
knowledge." t The speculative thus conforms to
the concept, and the empirical to the judgment.
As, however, the concept presupposes the judg-
ment, so the speculative must presuppose the
empirical. They must not be isolated ; as if each,
taken singly, could reach the true conception of

^ Dial, p. 127. \ Dial., p. 130.

l8o SCHLEIERMACHER.

knowledge. It is only in the interpenetration and
identity of both that the highest idea of philosophy,
which is the resolving of all contrasts, can be
attained. Yet, for us, the perfect identity of the
two — the real world-wisdom — is impossible. We
can never, either by means of the concept or of the
judgment, comprehend the totality of being ; and
nothing short of this is necessary in order to bring
about the complete interpenetration of the specu-
lative and empirical elements in thought. All
that is within our reach is scientific criticism, or a
description of the relation subsisting between the
empirical and the speculative. " But if the pure
idea of knowledge is nowhere realised, have we
any substitute for it? Yes, in criticism, or the
comparison of knowledge, as it is, with the highest
idea of knowledge ; and this principle of criticism
occupies in the scientific sphere the same place
that conscience occupies in the sphere of the
moral life." " This is the relative form of
philosophy as criticism ; not as criticism of pure
reason, but merely as criticism of the self-represen-
tation of reason in real knowledge." *

And so, at length, we are led to the con-
clusion that the forms of thought and of being
are alike limited and relative. Even as, in the
sphere of thought, we cannot think of a concept
without a judgment, a judgment without a con-

* Dial., pp. 142-144.

PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. l8l

cept, or the speculative without the empirical, "so
we cannot " — to quote the paraphrase of Bender —
"conceive, in being, a cause without an effect, a
force without its phenomenon, or a substance with-
out an accident, and vice versa. We must, on the
contrary, regard being as at once unity and
plurality, force and appearance, cause and effect,
as at rest not less than in motion, as free not less
than necessary — free as the self-existing unity of
force and phenomena ; necessary as conditioned
through the joint-whole of existence. Accordingly
the difference between the distinct forms of
thought and being turns out, at all points, to be
relative ; and the contrast between thought and
being remains as a unique and seemingly unre-
solvable antithesis."*

VI. — THE FUNCTION OF THE WILL.

In the foregoing analysis the outer world, or
physical being, acts what may be termed the prin-
cipal part. It is the supreme condition without
which consciousness can neither obtain its material
nor come into light. Everywhere it is the same
all-dominating might, giving shape to spirit, and
compelling it to submit to its rude, aggressive sway.

* Schleiermacher's Theologie : Die philosophischen Grundlagen,
p. 80.

1 82 SCHLEIERMACHER.

In the production of knowledge it constitutes the
real and active factor, while mind is the formal and
passive element.

But knowledge does not by itself constitute the
whole of conscious life : the co-related, and equally
wide sphere of will, has also to be taken into
account. Now, in will there is an entire reversal
of the process that obtains in knowledge. In
knowledge the outer is primary, the inner is
secondary : the one acts, the other is acted upon.
But in will, thought is no longer receptive and
passive ; it becomes spontaneous and initiative.
It seizes upon external objects, so as to modify
them, and render them subservient to its purpose.
Thought can do this, but only in as far us it is
will ; that is, thought receiving its content from
the inner being of spirit, or ethical being. For,
even as it is the nature of physical being to affect
the thinking Ego, and to find its representation
there, so it is the nature of ethical being to in-
fluence the outer world, and in it to attain its
realization. Universal being thus presents, accord-
ing to the way in which it acts, a double contrast :
there is the being which precedes thought, and is
the object of thought, and there is the being which
succeeds thought, the being that is the purpose of
thought. Hence, will, not less than knowledge, is
the definite expression of the causal relations be-
tween nature and mind, organization and intellect;
with the predominance, in the one case of the

PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. 183

ethical, in the other, of the physical. "In both,
there is the relation between thought and being :
in knowledge, being is the active, in will, it is the
passive side ; in knowledge, thought is the passive
side, in will, it is the active side."*

Schleiermacher did not think it necessary to
give an extended analysis of will ; as, in his view,
knowledge and will were but different aspects of
the one universal process of the activity of mind.
Not only do the organic and the intellectual concur
in will as they do in thought ; there can further be
no real thought without the presence of will, and
no real exercise of will into which the element of
intelligence does not enter. Both factors are in-
separably interwoven into the common texture of
conscious life. We are never will alone, or thought
alone. The one is always the necessary predicate
of the other ; so that every free product of reason
implies a volition, and every act of will implies a
thought. Indeed, the more a thought rests upon
a volitional basis the clearer and more distinctive
does it become ; and, on the other hand, the more
decisive an impulse of will is the more directly
does it proceed from an intelligent ground.

If, however, knowledge and will are not separate
faculties of mind, but different processes of the
general movement of thought, it follows that the
difference between ethical and physical being, be-

* Dial., p. 519 ; Psych., p. 170.

1 84 SCHLEIERMACHER.

tween mind and nature, is not absolute but relative,
not qualitative but quantitative. The two are
related as the ideal and the real — the ideal being
mind and matter, with the first predominating ;
the real being also mind and matter, but with the
predominance of the last. In man the ideal
reaches its highest stage ; but it is also present in
nature, though with diminishing grades of distinct-
ness down to the lowest form of inorganic life.
The real finds its fullest expression in the in-
organic ; and from this, up to man, all other forms
of being are only successively diminishing phases
of the real. We can, therefore, represent the ideal
and the real as constituting a single line of de-
velopment. " The ethical and the physical may be
viewed, in each of two ways, as forming a single
series ; yet the point where the contrast emerges in
man is always a turning-point — (the point at and
through which the physical passes through man's
action into the ethical). Below man the contrast
between the inner and the outer is blunted, and
there is no such thing as determined thought or
determined will. These belong essentially to the
human self-consciousness, and are denied to the
lower creation. But, since there exists in animal
and plant life a relation analogous to that of
thought and will, we can picture all life as a chain
of progressive development of the ideal, with man,
and his whole being, as the last link of the chain,
and thus the ethical coalesces with the physical

PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. 1 85

only in man. But, conversely, we can conceive a
complete reversion of the process, so that the real
is evolved from the ideal. In that case the activity
of man, which is a simple modification of the real,
would occupy the lowest stage in the process ;
whereas higher developments of the real take place
in animals, whose productive energy is purely
material — (real and non-ethical) — and in plant-
life, which only produces material germs. And,
thus, the whole reality, which is the object of phy-
sics, appears as the ethical sphere of the irrational
beings." (" So dass die ganze Physik als die Ethik
des unbeseelten erscheint") * That is, the ethical
process may be viewed from either side of the
contrast given in consciousness — the physical, or
intellect as acted on by nature, and the will, as
acting upon nature. In the one case we get a
preponderance of the ideal with a minimum of the
real (man) ; in the other a preponderance of the real
with a minimum of the ideal (plants). The first is
the " turning-point " of the ethical, the other the
"turning-point" to the fulness of the real.

Still, although the physical and the ethical are
so related, that the physical is a limited ethical,
and the ethical a limited physical, it is in the
region of humanity alone that a true ethic prevails.
" In the animal world the contrast between the
ideal and the real is wanting in accentuation, and

* Dial., p. 149.

1 86 SCHLEIERMACHER.

consequently the activity of the ideal principle, in
its essential nature, finds no place there. Man is
then the only "turning-point" from which being
can issue under the form of the activity of the ideal
upon the real." ..." Within the range of the
earthly being that surrounds us, man is the efflor-
escence of the ideal. He is the highest volitional
being ; a lesser grade of will exists in animals ;
and in the vegetable creation will is entirely
hidden, and we enter upon the inorganic."*

Schleiermacher's identification of knowledge and
will recalls the similar doctrine of Spinoza.t Yet,
though both are agreed, at the threshold, in
characterizing will as being permeated by intelli-
gence, they differ entirely in the scope of activity
which they separately assign to it. Spinoza,
bound by the logical connection of his system, was
forced to limit the activity of the will to the con-
ceptual sphere. Schleiermacher avoided this one-
sided determinism by ascribing the phenomena of
will to the self-determining purpose of the rela-
tively independent individuality of each. With

'' Dial. ,\>ii. 149, 150.

+ For Spinoza's view consult the Ethica, ii. 48, 49 ; iii. 9. See
further, the admirable chapter on Intelligence and Will in Prin-
cipal Caird's Spinoza. The modern philosophy of evolution also
identifies the physical and the ethical. One of the most interest-
ing of recent attempts in the same direction is that made by
the late Professor Henry Drummond in his Natural Law in the
Spiritual World.

PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. 1 87

him, will is thought ; but it is thought as the
deliberate movement of the inner being, not
thought as determined, or called into existence, by
outer being.

Knowledge and will being, then, in the estima-
tion of Schleiermacher, two relatively independent
factors emerging into conscious unity in man, it
follows that we as much need a common basis of
certainty with respect to will as we do with
respect to knowledge. Even as thought is the
same for all, so there must be a form of will which
is the same and identical for all.

Now, what makes it possible for the individual
to determine in the same manner as the whole of
humanity determines, is, Schleiermacher asserts,
the universal will. "The cause why another can
will as we will is not grounded in us as individuals
— since it is the basis of the identity of the univer-
sal and the particular — but rather in the living
force of the race, upon which the essential ethical
deduction rests,"* This "living force of the race,"
or the universal will — the antithesis of the sub-
stantial forces of the world — is the moral law, and
it enters the individual will as a necessity of the
human spirit in its relation to the race. It is
only when this universal will develops itself in
individuals, according to their peculiar disposition,
that will becomes distinctly moral.

* Dial., p. 150.

155 SCHLEIERMACHER.

This relation of the will of all to the will of each
is not to be conceived as if it were an accidental
relation : it is founded on the nature of the human
spirit. The ethical forms through which we act
upon being exist in the reason in the same way in
which the forms of the outer world, by which we
represent being, lie typified in the conceptual
sphere. "The determinations of will that are
viewed as imperative {Sollen) have their impulse
in the collective consciousness dwelling in us — that
is, the consciousness of the race — which embraces
in itself the universal assent, because therein all is
given as one. The determinations that are viewed
as obligation (Diirfen), and which are only second-
arily determined through the conscience, have
their impulse in our individual consciousness.
Yet we can onlj' posit both as one — the "ought "
as the manifestation of the " shall." The co-exist-
ence in us of the consciousness of the race and the
consciousness of the individual is, therefore, the
presupposition of all real will."*

Further, will, not less than thought, must agree
with being. Our conscious will can pass beyond
the limits of subjectivity, and can transform itself
into a form of outer being. Now, the ground of
the conformity of our will to this outer being lies
not in the consciousness of the race, but in " the
pure transcendental identity of the ideal and the

* Dia/., p. 523.

PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. 1 89

real." For will, as for knowledge, the ultimate
basis is the same. " The ground of the one is not
different from that of the other ; for if they were
different, not only would thought and will be
differently conditioned, but also each would be
double, inasmuch as each is likewise the other.
There would, in that case, exist a duality
(Duplicitdt) which must either be explained by
a higher unity — and this would be the true trans-
cendental ground — or the duality must be regarded
as bisecting existence ; so that, instead of certainty,
confusion would once more prevail."*

Will and knowledge accordingly represent two
contrasted functions which must be referred to the
same speculative basis. To this they both clearly
point ; but neither singly, nor together, can they
lead us to the common source from which they
spring. They cannot discover the absolute, or that
which lies beyond all contrast. And yet, in the
search for this transcendental ground, they are not
to be separated ; for both are equally related to
the solution of the great problem. They are in-
separably connected in their origin and activity ;
and as far as the one can bring us on our way, so
far, and not further, can the other. In discussing
the ultimate basis of knowing and being, it is,
therefore, entirely unphilosophical to accentuate
thought or will, as if either, taken by itself, held

* Dial., pp. 150-151.

I90 SCHLEIERMACHER.

the key to this profoundest of all speculative ques-
tions. "To regard the one, and to neglect the other,
as is done by the natural theology that attempts
to prove the existence of God by the function
of thought alone, is one-sided and partial. But
not less one-sided are the attempts of Kant, who
seeks to establish the same fact by the mere
function of the will — and of Fichte, who, following
in the line of this method, endeavours to reduce
the order of the world to a single formula." *

VII. — FEELING, OR THE UNIFYING PRINCIPLE.

Thought and will, as we have hitherto followed
them, have failed to reach the final ground of
knowledge. The sphere of thought is the sphere
of the contrasted, or the conditioned. It ex-
presses the causal relations between being and
us, between the organic and the intellectual. Pure
thought, or thought without an object which excites
it, is an absurdity. But thought into which the
finite and conditioned must necessarily enter as
constitutive elements cannot comprehend the ab-
solute and the unconditioned — the unity at the
foundation of thought and being. That unity — the
Being of all beings — must, from the nature of the
case, be raised above all contrasts or opposites ;

^ Dial., p. 428.

PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. 191

and to think of it theistically, as a personality ; or
pantheistically, as a natura naturans, is to think of
it by contrast, or in a finite anthropomorphic and
conceptual fashion.

Equally unfitted, too, is will for the attainment
of philosophical knowledge of the absolute. The
will — apart from the contrasts of subject and
object, form and content, which are common to it
not less than to thought — is also conditioned or
determined. That which is willed must be some-
thing definite, something known — a virtue, a duty,
or an end. Without this definiteness, which im-
plies relation, volition cannot exist. If, however,
in will, we always will the definite or the deter-
minate, it is impossible that the Absolute can ever
come within its sphere. This is, as to its very
essence, indefinite, pure being ; and we cannot in
any way determine it. It lies outside the range of
our conscious activity ; and it cannot become the
purpose of our thought. We cannot act upon
it, or modify it, as we please. " An impulse of will
directed towards the Absolute is a mere blank, since
it leads to no definite action, as we see exe'mplified
in the phenomena of quietism." * The being of
God can, therefore, be as little apprehended
through the moral side of our nature as through
the intellectual, as little through ethical knowledge
as through physical, or emperical, knowledge.

* Dial., p. 156.

192 SCHLEIERMACHER.

As, however, the Absolute is the postulate both
of thought and of will there must be some way of
apprehending it. Such a way, Schleiermacher tells
us, is to be found in the next, or highest, stage in
the development of the human spirit — in feeling,
or the immediate self-consciousness (Gefiikl, un-
mittelbares Selbstbewusstsein). As this principle of
feeling occupies an important place in the doctrine
of Schleiermacher, it may be well to endeavour to
obtain a clear conception of its nature and content.

Self-consciousness is represented by Schleier-
macher as having three stages. First, there is
primitive or confused consciousness, where the
contrasts of subject and object, inner and outer,
remain undeveloped. This vague and distinction-
less condition is the state in which the child finds
itself before it begins to laugh or to speak — before it
becomes conscious either of itself or of things. Its
world is the world of chaos, where there is neither
totality nor individuality, division nor unity. In
this lowest stage — essentially one with the animal
sphere of existence — the personal, human con-
sciousness is only latent. Yet, as the real life of
man is but a continuous development of conscious-
ness, from lower to higher — a constantly-increasing
knowledge on the part of the Ego in relation to
itself and objects, humanity and the world — it may
be said there is no specific difference between the
consciousness of the child and that of the greatest
philosopher. The difference is a difference of

PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. 193

degree ; for, as we cannot deny knowledge to the
child, even should it exist only in germ, so, regard-
ing the philosopher, we cannot say that his know-
ledge is entirely perfect. Reason, the active, com-
bining principle, is present in the spirit of each ;
since without that presence there could not come
into existence, in the case of either, the type of
thought that is characterized as rational know-
ledge.

The second grade is called the sensuous, or
individual consciousness [das sinnliche Bewusstsein).
Here the confused, animal consciousness gives
place to the distinctly human consciousness. The
vague and manifold state of chaos is broken up
into the contrasts of subject and object, I and not
I. The inner thought-activity, the essential human
unity, begins to know and to distinguish itself
from the multiplicity of things. It differentiates
between subjective and objective consciousness ;
between sensations, the inner feelings we have
when acted upon by the world, and perceptions,
which express the manner in which objective being
mirrors itself in us. But, with this advance from
the indifferent and contrastless state of chaos, the
living unity of the Ego becomes conscious of its
own existence and independence in the midst of
the infinite flux of finite things. Man becomes
conscious of himself as the active, unifying prin-
ciple in the world. He distinguishes his own
definite, thinking being from the indefinite, non-
13

194 SCHLEIERMACHER.

thinking objects by which he is surrounded. This
is the first great step in the universal process of
spiritual existence, or the development of reason
in the human consciousness. Man, amidst the
totality of outer being, knows and feels himself as
no longer one with the vague and universal
whole : he knows and feels himself to be a separate
and independent being, " a living unity,'' an in-
tellect, in contradistinction to the world and its
"dead unities" — which are but so many points of
transition to the essential evolution of the soul's
life.

This awakening of intellect prepares us, on the
supposition of Schleiermacher that " each extension
of consciousness implies a progressive development
of life,"* for a further advance of thought and inner
life. And so we find that, even as man comes to
the knowledge of himself through thought, or "the
constant repetition of the fact of consciousness," he
now raises himself, a step yet higher still, by
means of speech — in this case no longer nomen-
clature, or the naming of things, but a necessity of
intercommunication with fellow-beings. Through
the use of language — the organic side of thought —
he knows and feels himself to be a man, a member
of the human race. He becomes conscious of the
family and tribe, the nation and humanity. In

*"Jede Erweiteruug des BewussUins ist Lebenserhbhung."

Psych., p. 133.

PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. I95

this connection there are developed in him the
social and moral feelings, such as fellowship, love
and compassion. These, though arising from
the inter-relations of the race, are not given
as direct objects of knowledge, or as postu-
lates of the will : they are more or less imme-
diate in their character. The moral feelings
" can only exist in their integrity when the con-
trast between one's existence and that of the
existence of others is reduced to a minimum."
Contrasted conditions are the presupposition of all
empirical knowledge ; so that this effort to rise
above the contrasted is the first real indication of
a movement on the part of intellect towards the
higher, or immediate self-consciousness. In the
next advance of the individual consciousness this
movement is even more pronounced. Man, the
restless, thinking being, cannot rest either in him-
self or in the race : he stretches out further still to
that unity which embraces the individual, and
humanity and nature. He finds himself imme-
diately one with the world, and feels the unity of
all existence. The feelings that represent this
oneness with the world are the aesthetic feelings —
our feelings for the beautiful, the harmonious, and
the sublime. These, though we cannot justify
their existence on the ground of real knowledge —
any more than we can justify the social and ethical
feelings — have a certainty of their own, and act a
supreme part in the culture and development of

196 SCHLEIERMACHER.

the race. As they express themselves in Art,
through the agency of fancy, the active and inter-
pretive side of feeling, they create, as it were, a
new world, without which life would be poor and
earth-bound.

But the spirit of man cannot rest in its conscious-
ness of the world, as the final goal of its ever
onward movement. The world itself is a contrast
in unity, and is consequently only the presupposi-
tion and condition of a further impulse towards a
still higher stage of feeling. This stage is attained
when God, the real Unity, behind all and binding
all, is immediately given in the inner conscious-
ness. Immediately given, not in the sense that it
is pure feeling — such a state being, according to
Schleiermacher, as much an impossibility as pure
thought. It is immediate in the sense that the
consciousness of God is not formed in us, like the
concept or the judgment, through the intervention
of an object, or the medium of reflection. In feel-
ing, the contrasts upon which thought rests are
suppressed. What we feel is not something
external or finite, not the totality of being or the
highest power : what we feel is our own individual
self-consciousness as essentially related to God.
Feeling is the form of subjective knowledge corres-
ponding to the Absolute. It is not wrought in
us : it is the immediate relation of the soul to the
transcendental Unity appearing and revealing

PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. I97

itself in finite things, and it simply comes to exist-
ence in the individual consciousness.

This is the utmost reach possible to the human
spirit, the bloom and product of all its manifold
development. Here, in the Absolute Ground and
Unity of the infinite and all-producing life, it finds
rest ; for here it not only knows but is one, in
living contact, with the object of its mysterious
and necessary search, from lower to higher, from
outer to inner, from division to unity. This imme-
diate feeling of God, as distinguished from the
moral and aesthetic feelings, is the distinctly
religious feeling. Religion has not only its psycho-
logical but its essential basis in this immediate
consciousness of God ; and, as this consciousness is
common to all men — being the characteristic
element in the active and living development of
the race — it is as natural and necessary that man
should be religious as it is that he should think
or act.

The immediate self-consciousness is thus the
highest stage in the evolution of subjective con-
sciousness. It rests on the earlier stages, and
without them it could never come into existence.
Without finding the unity of our own life, and
without the feeling of our oneness with humanity
and the world, we could never rise to the conscious-
ness of the Absolute Unity. " The religious feel-
ing comprehends the feeling for nature and the
social feelings, for it is developed from these ; and

198 SCHLEIERMACHER.

its natural tendency may be described as the re-
moval of the contrast between being, as it is con-
sciousness, and being, as it is given in conscious-
ness — subject and object. This removal of the
contrast is to be understood as taking place only
on the subjective side of consciousness." And the
more truly we develop ourselves, and our objective
knowledge, the more perfectly will the immediate
consciousness be developed in us. " There is no
isolated view of the Deity ; but we view it only
through, in, and with the entire system of view.
(Es giebt keine isolirte Anschaumig der Gottheit,
sondern wir schauen sie nur an in und niit dem ges-
aniniten System der Anschauung.) Consequently
our knowledge of God is first attained through our
view of the world. It is as we find a clue to the
meaning of the one that the characteristic features
of the other appear. If our view of the world is
defective our notions of Deity will not advance
beyond the mythological stage." ..." My
position is, that, as the Absolute is the basis of all
thought, we must accept the idea of God as being
present in every real thought. For this reason I
find myself in conflict with those who separate
God from the world. There is no other way of
having the idea of God than in our real know-
ledge ; and this idea is perfected through the
perfection of real knowledge. The idea of God
does not exist apart from our knowledge as to
the world." But in all knowledge the life of the

PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. 199

soul is one in all its phases of higher and
lower. As ice, water, and vapour are different
forms of one and the same substance, H2 O,
and not separate substances, each having its prin-
ciple in itself; so thought and feeling and will are
not distinct and separate organs, or capacities,
of mind : they are all manifestations of the one
spiritual life of the conscious Ego. Feeling, not
less than the reflective consciousness, is know-
ledge, is an activity of reason. In feeling, know-
ledge is predominantly individualistic ; in thought
it assumes a predominantly universal type. In
the one, the subject is related to its object imme-
diately, without contrast or intermediation ; in the
other, contrast and reflection are absolutely neces-
sary to the existence of thought and will. In the
reflective self-consciousness the opposition between
the outer and the inner, the ideal and the real is
never wholly removed. It can, therefore, never
reach the Absolute ground of being — that ground
which science ever postulates, and philosophy
always strives to attain, as the rational unity under-
lying all thought and being, force and appearance.
On the other hand, feeling, as a form of the uni-
versal activity of reason, finds and represents, in its
own way, that Absolute Unity. What knowledge,
in the early stages of sensation and perception,
concept and judgment, fails to reach, knowledge,
in the final stage, as immediate self-consciousness,
attains as a sure and certain possession. The last

200 SCHLEIERMACHER.

stage of the individual self-consciousness is thus
the necessary continuation and development of the
strivings and postulates of the earlier and ever-
advancing stages of the human spirit*

Schleiermacher next distinguishes between the
immediate self-consciousness and sensation {Emp-
findung). Sensation he defines as a subjective
personal state existing in a distinct moment, and
arising in virtue of organic excitation, or affection.
This state, which corresponds to the confused
animal self-consciousness, is akin to the immediate
self-consciousness in one thing, only that it is the
negation of thought and will. For sensation, the
subjective consciousness and its phenomena, have
not yet come into existence ; for the immediate
self-consciousness they do exist ; only not as real
thought, and will, and the subjective conscious-
ness, but as the identity, or indifference, of these.
Feeling, as sensation, is the lowest stage in the
development of the human spirit ; feeling, as
immediate self-consciousness, is the last and
highest stage in the same development.

One of the principal objections adduced by
Hegel against Schleiermacher's doctrine of im-
mediate self-consciousness — and one that has fre-

* Dial., pp. 28-29, 150-153. 322, 329. 413-431 ; Psych., pp. 81-
97, 212-236; ALsthetik, pp. 67-79; Dcr Christliche Glaube, pp.
21-29. Vide also Bal/our's Foundations of Belief for an interesting
chapter on Esthetics in relation to the findings of critical philoso-
phy and modern science.

PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. 20I

quently since been made — is that feeling is the
lowest grade in the intellectual process, and is not
even distinctly human, being also possessed by the
brutes as the sense-form of their consciousness.
This objection, in itself psychologically false, fails
to apprehend Schleiermacher's view, and confounds
his representation of sensation with that of feeling.
Sensation, it is true, needs to be supplemented by
perception and thought; for it is the non-existence,
or rather the prophecy of these. It is not so with
feeling. This is not a subordinate stage of con-
sciousness existing prior to the more advanced
stages: it is the final stage of all — -the stage which,
while implying the highest contrasted states of the
conscious Ego, is itself higher than these, because
reducing them to a unity present, immediate, and
without contrast.*

And, here, it may be noted that Schleiermacher
further describes feeling as " the relative identity
of thought and will." " We have no other identity
of the two than feeling, which becomes, by turns,
the last step in thought, and the first in will ; but
this identity is always only relative — both terms
being never in exact equipoise." + Again, " re-
garding life as a process, we find that it is a
transition from thought to will, and from will to
thought — both of these moments being taken in

* Dial., pp. 151-154, 524 ; Psych., pp. 182-216 ; Aisth., p. 67.
\ Dial., p. 157.

202 SCHLEIERMACHER.

their relative significance. The point of transition
is thought as vanishing, and will as beginning, and
these two must be identical. In thought, the
being of things is posited in us, after our fashion ;
in will, we posit our being in things, also after our
fashion. Therefore, only in so far as the being of
things becomes posited in us, can our being
become posited in things. But, our being is that
which posits ; and, as this falls back into the
indifference point, our being, as positing, conse-
quently relapses into the indifference of both
forms. This is the immediate self-consciousness,
or feeling." * In other words, the contrasts of
thought and will are united in feeling. We are
always that which thinks, and that which wills —
what is acted upon, as well as what acts ; but, just
because we are, there must exist in our conscious-
ness a point of equipoise, or of transition, where
the activities of the two forms are at rest, and by
which we can pass from the one to the other.
Such a point is feeling. Here the antitheses of
willing and knowing are removed ; and the con-
scious subject, as such, without objective and
contrasted relations, alone remains.

Feeling is accordingly the bond by which the
coherence and continuity of our consciousness is
secured. It is the unity of our being. It is the
Ego in its innermost essence, and considered apart

* Dial., pp. 428-429.

PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. 203

from its connection with objects, in knowing and
willing. Without it, thought and volition would
not only stand separate and apart : they would
become disintegrated, and fall asunder. As to
either, there could be no stability and no certainty.
But feeling is the permanent potency behind both ;
and through it the actions of each are con-
stantly renewed. It ensures their continuity, and
it gives validity to their determinations. " The
immediate self-consciousness,"says Schleiermacher,
" is not only present in transition (from one in-
tellectual phase to another), but inasmuch as
thought is will, and will is thought, it must also be
present in each moment. And, so, we find feeling
always accompanying each moment ; whether it be
prevailingly intellectual or prevailingly volitional.
It seems to vanish when we allow ourselves to be-
come completely engrossed in an intuition or an
action ; but this is only apparently the case. It
always accompanies us. At times it seems to
emerge, alone, into existence ; and then thought
and action appear to sink out of view. This, too,
is only apparently so ; for, however much they may
seem to have vanished, feeling ever bears in itself
traces of will and germs of thought." *

Such, then, being Schleiermacher's account of
feeling ; how, it may be enquired, is the idea of
God given to us through this activity of conscious-

* Dial., p. 429 ; cf. Psych., p. 213.

204 SCHLEIERMACHER.

ness ? In answer to this question, Schleiermacher
replies : " We have knowledge only as to the
being of God in us and in things, but not as to
a being of God external to the world, or in itself.
The being of Ideas {Ideen) is a being of God
in us, not because the Ideas as determined repre-
sentations fill up a moment in consciousness, but
because they express in the same manner in all
(therefore in human nature generally) the essence
of being, and because, owing to the certainty
attaching to them, they indicate the identity of the
real and the ideal, which identity is posited in us
neither as individuals nor as the whole of humanity.
In the same way, the being of Conscience
(Gewissen) is a being of God in us. Not, inasmuch
as it exists in individual representations — in that
case subject to error not less than is the individual
application of Ideas — but inasmuch as it pronounces
with moral certainty the correspondence of our
will with the law of outer being, and is, on that
account the same identity." " The being of Ideas "
— the realism of the concepts — is to be understood
in the sense that the forms of thought are identical
with the forms of being ; concept agreeing with
force and judgment with appearance. The same
correspondence of the forms of thought and being
is also present in " the being of Conscience."
We can then say that, in as far as man is the
unity of the real and ideal, the being of Ideas,
the pure principles, from which consciousness

PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. 20$

Starts, along with the principle of Will, or of
action, represent the being of the Absolute in him.
" In the unity of physical and ethical knowledge
— knowledge as to the world and man — is the unity
of world-order ( Weltordnung) and law, as both, in
their separate movements, establish themselves in
each of these spheres. This Unity is what men
generally mean by the expression God ... If
we represent the ethical under the potency of the
physical, we can say the basis of the world-order
is likewise the basis of law ; if we represent the
physical under the potency of the ethical, we can
say the basis of law is likewise the principle of the
world-order. In our consciousness of God we
have the identity of both. He is the transcen-
dental ground in the separate movements of both
functions, and in the unity of self-consciousness in
its passages from the one to the other. This is the
point from which all enquiry as to the rules of
procedure in thought must start."

" Ideas can only be the source of truth in pro-
portion as they picture being, and the Conscience
can only be the source of right, in so far as it
describes the relation of man to the world. But
the Absolute is found only in the identity of both ;
and this identity represents the highest unity of
life, which can never be posited in us in a personal
manner, neither can it belong entirely to the
human race. It is the unity of Truth and of
Conscience ; the first as moved by the will, the

206 SCHLEIERMACHER.

Other as it is influenced through thought. The
unity of thought and being in this unity (of truth
and Conscience) is the highest self, the Absolute.
The relation of will to thought, and vice versa, and
the unity thereof, are the divine in us. Religion
manifests this divine in life ; speculation manifests
it in reflection ; but both manifest it only in some-
thing else, not as it is in itself"

" Since, therefore, Ideas and Conscience form a
permanent unity amidst the fluctuations of con-
sciousness, God must be given to us as the condi-
tion of our inner life. The, to us, innate being of
God constitutes our real essence, for, without Ideas
and without Conscience, we would sink to the level
of the brutes." ..." But, although the being of
God is present in our Ideas and Conscience, these
two are not to be supposed as existing in Him ;
since in Him there is no contrast of concept and
object, or of will and shall. Ideas and Conscience
thus fail to express the being of God as it is in
itself . . " Knowledge of the being of God,

in itself, can be nothing else than a concept. But
it is all along taken for granted that, in the idea of
the highest, the contrast of the concept and of the
object is suppressed. The concept of God can
only exist in Himself; and in us only in as far
as the being of God is posited in us. He is,
however, in us simply as the condition of our
self-consciousness — not as He is in Himself, but
only as He is in relation to another (to the con-

PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. 20/

sciousness of man regarding himself, or his definite
human relations). Our concept of God is, there-
fore, always bound up with that to which our con-
cept is related. If we had a complete concept of
Him, the concept would exist in us and the object
without us (as happens in thought)." . . . "In
that case, the affection of the organic function would
be directly connected with God Himself as object,
which is an impossibility. Hence we cannot really
apprehend the being of God ; and the Absolute,
the highest unity, the identity of the ideal and the
real, are only schemata. If these conceptions are
to become instinct with life, they must again enter
the sphere of the finite, and the contrasted ; as
when God is thought of as a natura natttrans, or
as a conscious absolute personality." *

This description of God as given in feeling is
both negative and positive. As the Absolute is
indefinable and indeterminate being lying outside
the sphere of phenomena — we are not here to
think of Kant's das Ding an sick and its appear-
ances — it is evident that it cannot be known. We
cannot cognise it as a being external, and separate
from the world. To attempt to do so would be to
bring it within the limits of thought, and to
destroy its essential character. Neither can we,
for the same reason, regard God as the absolute
force, or the absolute causality. These, though

* Dial., pp. 154-158 ; v. also Psych., pp. 182-216.

208 SCHLEIERMACHER.

they cannot be classified as phenomena, can only
be conceived as having a distinct and determined
existence. They consequently come within the
sphere of the conceptual, or the contrasted, and
cannot represent the highest of all beings. Yet,
while we cannot know God as an object, or as He
is, Schleiermacher maintains that we can know
Him as He becomes conscious in us. In feeling,
we are the unity of the ideal and the real, of
thought and being. But this unity is the con-
sciousness, or being, of God in us. What feeling
represents subjectively, as the indifference of all
determinate functions, corresponds to the objective
being of God, as manifested iu the universe. The
divine is posited in us by means of feeling, even as
external being is posited in us through perception.
Still, we must not forget, that this absolute ground
of thought and being is given in the immediate
self-consciousness, not directly, and as it is, but
only as the form and principle of the rational and
moral order of the universe. The Urgrund, the
primal source, the " whence," of all our dependence,
we can never really know : we have it ever in us,
and we are conscious of its presence as the condi-
tion of our intellectual and moral life.

Thus far consciousness presents us with an
immediate knowledge of the being of God. But
there is also a further knowledge of the same being
as it exists in things. " The being of God is given
in our knowledge as to things ; for in each indi-

PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. 209

vidual thing, in virtue of the fact of being and co-
existence — the whole as embracing its parts — there
is not only posited the totality of all being, but the
transcendental Ground of the same. And, since
things correspond to the system of concepts, there
is also posited in our consciousness of things the
identity of the ideal and the real, and therewith
the transcendental Ground." Thus, because of the
"totality and unity" of all finite things, each act
of knowledge as to individual things brings us into
contact not only with the world, but with God as
its transcendental cause. This knowledge of God
in things is, like our knowledge of Him in
Ideas and Conscience, relative and formal. It tells
us nothing of what He is in Himself, and apart
from the world ; it simply represents Him as
existing in the world, as its underlying ground and
perfect unity. He is the explanation of its being,
and the principle of its endless movement and
combination.

By the " world " is here meant the totality of
being in its manifold plurality. It is the sum of
contrasted existence — nature not less than spirit.
The earth and the star-worlds, with their ethical
and physical systems — thought and being, the real
and the ideal — these are the elements that go to
form the idea of the world. If, however, the world
is so wide and comprehensive as this — if it em-
braces all contrasts and dififerences^we can, at once,
see that it, too, must more or less lie outside the

14

210 SCHLEIERMACHER.

sphere of real knowledge. " The idea of the world
is the limit of our knowledge. We are bound by
the earthly. All the operations of thought and
the entire system of the formation of our concepts
must be grounded therein."* We cannot then
form a complete representation of the world's vast
whole. Indeed, its true being can no more be
conceived by us than the being of God. The
totality of determinate existence is, not less than
the Absolute, transcendental in its character ; and
we can never perfectly grasp the boundlessness of
its being. The history of our knowledge is only
an approximation towards the understanding of
the world ; hence our views regarding it are as in-
adequate and figurative as those which we enter-
tain concerning the deity.

The world is thus for our knowledge transcen-
dental ; but it is transcendental in a sense other-
wise than God is. It is transcendental as the
limit of thought, but not as the ground of being.
It is the terminus ad quem, not the terminus a quo.
It is the goal towards which our conscious life is
ever pressing ; it is not the starting-point from
which that life has set out. " The idea of the
Godhead is the transcendental terminus a quo, and
is the principle of the possibility of knowledge ;
the idea of the world is the transcendental terminus
ad quem, and the principle of the reality of know-

* Dial., p. 333.

PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. 211

ledge in ils becoming." * The one is the transcen-
dental of absolute being, towards which — in all
our endeavours — we can never get any nearer ; the
other is the transcend;ntal of finite being, towards
which we are ever approaching through the ex-
tensive and intensive perfection of our knowledge.
The one is apprehended uno actu, for it possesses
no plurality or distinction ; the other, as far as we
know it, is perceived by organic thought. The
one, while it is the necessary postulate of the forms
of knowledge, is for ever inaccessible to thought ;
the other, constituting, as it does, the ground of
progressive knowledge, constitutes the limits, or
bounds, of our thought.

Both these ideas, the world and God, are neces-
sary correlates. The one, for us, cannot exist
without the other. The formula expressing their
inseparable relation, is " no world without a God,
no God without a world." {Die Welt nicht ohne
Gott, Gott nicht ohne die Welt.) To think of the
world without God, would be to think of it as
chaos. So also to think of God without the world,
would be to regard Him as the principle of non-
existence, or as an empty phantasm. The world
would, in that case, be purely accidental ; even as
in the former case, it would be the result of a blind
fate. It is, therefore, evident that the two cannot
otherwise be conceived than as co-existiiig in

" Vial., p. 164.

2 I 2 SCHLEIERMACHER.

eternal relation. Without losing their identity,
they inter-penetrate each other. If God stood
outside of the world, there would be something in
Him not world-conditioning ; and if the world
stood outside of God, there would be something in
it not God-conditioned. " God is the postulate of
the world, even as the world is the postulate of
God. God is the primary source of all the forces
in activity in the universe, even as the universe is
the natural and necessary manifestation of the
primitive force which is in God. Indifference
and difference, the infinite and the finite, God
and the world, these are the two constitutive
elements of things, the double postulate of uni-
versal existence." *

And yet, closely as the world and God are
related, they must not be thought of in a panthe-
istic fashion, or, as if they were identical. Both
ideas represent the same being ; but they repre-
sent it in a totally different way. The world is
unity in plurality, God is unity without plurality ;
the world occupies time and space, God is timeless
and spaceless ; the world is the totality of con-
trasts, God is the positive negation of all contrasts.
The one is unity — absolute, and without dis-
tinction ; the other is unity — with distinctions, and

* Dial., pp. 162-9, 431-3, 526, etc.

Vide Bonifas : La Doctrine de la Redemption dans Schleier-
macher, p. 89, for quotation with which the paragraph ends.

PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. 213

finite. " God is unity, with the exclusion of all
contrasts ; the world is unity, with the inclusion of
all contrasts." *

It may be objected that this representation of
the Absolute, as distinctionless and without con-
trast, is an empty unity, equivalent to zero, and
tiiat the real unity is the world. It is not so, how-
ever. God is the full and positive unity which
embraces all within itself As the Absolute, noth-
ing can exist independently of Him. He is the
source of life, and the life from which all contrasts
are developed — the productive ground whence the
finite and its antitheses arise — but, as this takes
place in Him timelessly, He Himself never comes
within the region of the contrasted. Even the
world itself does not stand opposed to Him as an
independent being. Its parallel modes of the
ideal and the real, find their unity in Him ; just as
the organic and the intellectual functions are
united in the conscious Ego. How God and the
world are thus related, Schleiermacher does not
attempt to show. The question as to the manner
in which the world has come into existence had no
living significance for him, as not coming within
the range of practical knowledge. " He sought,"
to use the words of Sigwart, " no explanation of
the world from the Absolute, no cosmogony or
theogony, no theory of creation, or of the final

* Dial, p. 433.

2 14 SCHLEIERMACHER.

return of all things into God." He tried to take
account of both God and the world, as they
appeared in self-consciousness; and what he found
was that the two ideas, though distinct, always co-
existed. The one cannot be thought of in isolation
from the other ; yet they are not identical. God,
as transcendent and unknowable, is still immanent
in the world ; and the world, as finite multiplicity,
exists only in God.

Schleiermacher did not seek to define any more
closely the relation between God and the world,
than as a relation of co-existence. The various
efforts that had hitherto been made in that direc-
tion — notably, by the theistic theologians, and by
Spinoza, Kant and Schelling — he regarded as in-
sufficient, because they failed to reach, or to
conserve, in its purity, the idea of God. They
simply conceived God as the highest force, or the
highest thing. But, in doing so, they limited His
being, and brought it within the bounds of the finite
and the antithetic. His own view, though not,
perhaps, throwing any new light on the matter, is
of the greatest philosophic value, as showing that
no one need attempt a solution of the problem
unless he accepts, in the fullest sense, the separate
existence, and the inseparable co-existence, of both
God and the world.

As related to knowledge, both these ideas are
regulative principles. The idea of God, as the
ground of knowing and being, is the necessary

PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. 215

presupposition of all real thought, or the principle
of the very possibility of knowledge. " Every act
of knowledge, whether as concept or as judgment,
is only completed when it is raised to the unity of
the universal and the particular, the ideal and the
real, being and doing ; and this unity can only
be thought through the absolute unity."* As
Schleiermacher otherwise expresses it, " the idea
of God is the form of all knowledge as such."t
It is that without which the unity of thought and
being would be for ever impossible.

On the other hand, the idea of the world is the
principle of the reality of knowledge in its becom-
ing. It is the principle of the combination of
thought. All knowledge is a process, an advance.
As such, it is grounded not in the Absolute, but in
the world. This gives it a distinct content, and
an impulse towards an ever onward movement.
The theistic and cosmic ideas are thus regulative
principles ; but they are regulative in a different
sense. The one constitutes our real being. It
exists, to our consciousness, as the foundation of
our thought, as that which gives unity and
certainty to its various determinations. The other,
as the reality of contrasted being, is the incentive
to knowledge. It gives to thought its ever-widen-
ing content. It is the principle of its realization
and progress.

• Dial., p. 170. t Dial., p. 169.

2l6 SCHLEIERMACHER.

God and the world are, therefore, inseparably
connected in the production of knowledge. They
are correlative ; the one cannot be thought or
posited without the other. " For, since God is the
ground of the common law, dwelling alike in spirit
and in nature, we cannot otherwise conceive Him
than in relation to both ; therefore, as the ground
of that which, taken together, constitutes the
world." * In real cognition, God cannot be predi-
cated without the world, any more than unity can
be predicated without plurality. So, too, the idea
of the world, isolated and alone, is a mere vague
multiplicity, having no connection or order. Each
taken separately, leads to no result ; yet the two,
in co-existence, are the indispensable factors in the
actual process of knowledge. It is only when thus
necessarily, though relatively, related — the one
more as the principle of construction, the other
more as the principle of combination — that know-
ledge can be said to be perfected.

Schleiermacher's famous distinction between re-
ligion and philosophy — first instituted by Spinoza
in the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, though with
a very different purpose — is based upon these
views as to feeling and knowing. Religion and
knowledge he regarded as belonging to different
spheres of the human spirit. Religion is not

* Dial. , p. 526.

PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. 217

evolved by a process of speculative reason, neither
is it, like science, deduced from any universal
principle or principles ; it is an immediate fact of
the inner self-consciousness. It is not rooted in
knowledge or in action, but in the determination
of feeling as directly related to the Absolute. It
is its distinctive peculiarity that it is immediately
founded in the consciousness and presence of this
highest of all unities.

On the other hand, the province of philosophy is
the knowable. It occupies itself with the phenomena
of thought and being, the connection of the ideal
and the real. Its legitimate sphere is the field of
empirical consciousness. When it goes outside of
this province, and tries to find the Absolute, its
results are purely negative. To that original
ground of all, it can be only indirectly related. It
cannot discover, or produce, the idea of God. All
thai it can do, is to show the neces.sity why this
idea must be postulated as the form and pre-
supposition of all thinking and willing.*

From the above description, it would seem as if
religion were the highest potentiality of the human
spirit, and that philosophy must be subordinated to
it. In the clearest manner, Schleiermacher admits
the truth of the first part of this statement. Re-

* Professor H. Ulrici, whose philosophical and religious views
seem to have been influenced by Schleiermacher, has tried to prove,
in Gott und die Natur , that "God is the absolute presupposition
of natural science."

2l8 SCHLEIERMACHER.

ligion, according to him, is not the lowest form of
consciousness — not what Spinoza, and those who
regard philosophy and science as alone supreme
and valid for reason, would characterize as ignor-
ance, superstition, or myth — it is the highest sub-
jective moment in conscious experience, the factor
that most perfectly develops the highest rational
and volitional in man, the solution and the goal of
all human development. Yet, while it is so,
religion claims no primacy over philosophy. Both
are co-ordinate, and equally valid functions.
Religion, as the highest subjective state of
consciousness, is to man as natural, universal,
and trustworthy as thinking is ; as perceptions,
conceptions, and judgments are. Philosophy, on
the other hand, as the highest objective moment
in conscious experience, has its own sphere and
interest. The one derives its content from the
world, as formulated by reason, in sense and percep-
tion, thought and will ; the other is immediately
related to the ground of all being, through feeling
— not in the sense of pure feeling, but feeling as the
indifference of thought and will — feeling as the
highest content of both. Here, there can be no
question either of primacy or of subordination : it
is simply a matter of the interpretation, definition,
and classification of the facts of consciousness, as
we find them in the evolution of man's nature.

These views of Schleiermacher have been char-
acterized as pure mysticism, veiled Spinozism, and

PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. 219

what not ; yet I cannot help thinking that the
distinction he here makes is, both for philosophy
and religion, one of the most important and fruit-
ful that has been enunciated in modern times.
Philosophy has its own defined sphere — the facts
of empirical consciousness — and it can never get
beyond them. When it tries to do so, as when it
discourses on the being of God and its relations —
unless, indeed, to find in this conception both the
ground and possibility of all knowledge — it is
untrue to its function. But it is equally true that
religion, dealing as it does with the facts of im-
mediate self-consciousness, must be true to its own
data. These are not ideas or volitions, philosophies
or actions, dogmas or creeds : they are the direct
feelings which we have of God in the world, in the
soul, and in the inner human life. No doubt these
feelings must be expressed in a definite, scientific,
or philosophical form, but never in the form of any
defined philosophical or ethical system. When
religion does that, it empties itself of its true con-
tent, and ceases to have any real worth for the
human spirit.

Very significant, too, in this connection, is the
idea of Schleiermacher that religion, dealing, as it
does, with what is behind all knowledge — the
Absolute, or ground and explanation of the world —
is the highest and most essential factor in human
development: the goal towards which all conscious-
ness — the empirical, rational, and ethical — ever

220 SCHLEIERMACHER.

tends. In the actual processes of life, religion —
subjective, ultra-rational, supernatural — has ever
exercised the foremost place in the intellectual,
social, and ethical development of the race. More
than intellect, more than morality, it has been the
chief actor in the civilization and betterment of the
nations. Especially is this so, when we think not
of the positive religions, but of religion in its ideal
aspect — religion in Jesus Christ. By the might of
His sinless life, and perfectly divine consciousness,
He does for men what the positive religions never
did : He raises them above the tyranny of the
sensuous, sinful experience, and brings them into
the blessed fellowship, and the redeeming love of
God. The world in Christ is a new creation, a
unique and miraculous fact, for which there is no
explanation or validity in the ordinary processes of
life and thought. Yet, supra- rational as Christi-
anity must ever be, it has transformed the world ;
and contains the hope both of the present and the
future. The nations that are, to-day, the most
intelligent, active, civilizing, and triumphant, are
the Christian nations — or, rather, the nations that
are truest to the historical idea in Christ : the
distinctly Protestant nations. Benjamin Kidd, in
his works on Social Evolution, and Principles of
Western Civilization, and, less directly, the late
Henry Drummond, in The Ascent of Man, have
recently given scientific expression, in a most
interesting manner, to this great, fundamental

PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. 221

thought of Schleiermacher, that religion is the
essential and creative potency in the evolution of
the human race — the factor that has, since the
dawn of our era, ever lifted man to the highest de-
velopment on the intellectual, ethical, and spiritual
sides of his nature, and that is still destined to
raise him to an ever fuller and richer life.

We can thus see that Schleiermacher distin-
guished between philosophy and religion, science
and faith, not because of the influence of Spinoza,
as some are never weary of telling us, but because
of the inner necessity of his own peculiar view of
the world. Schleiermacher in working out, to
their logical issues, the principles laid down by
Kant, was the first to see that in the sphere of
the empirical self-consciousness there can be no
rational theology, no scientific development of the
idea of God and His attributes. All that we can
ever get in that line, are the temporal plurality
and the conceptual unities — the knowable — human
consciousness as the correlate of being. Will, or
the practical reason, can no more predicate God
than the intellect can ; for both occupy the same
plane, and are explained in the same way, as being
the causal relations of organization and reason.
It is in another way than by the empirical con-
sciousness that Schleiermacher sought to reach the
absolute ground of all our conscious relations — by
the way of feeling, or the unity of the rational and
the volitional. In feeling, we have a direct and

222 SCHLEIERMACHER.

immediate consciousness of God, and this con-
sciousness is religion. Its source and certitude
depend neither upon the principles of universal
reason, nor upon the mere verbal authority of
Scripture : they are grounded in the living con-
sciousness of the redeemed in Christ, and their
validity is independent of all logical or historical
proof.

Yet, clearly as Schleiermacher emphasised the
fact, that the basis of Christianity lies outside the
province of philosophy, he was very far, indeed,
from thinking that theology was given in the
same immediate and direct way in which feel-
ing is given. Theolog)-, as the expression of
the facts of spiritual experience, is purely human
in its form, and subject to the laws of human
thought and expression. The historical facts of
Christianity must be judged by the general
laws of evidence ; the articulation of the different
phases of the inward spiritual life must proceed on
philosophic or scientific lines; and all such articula-
tions must conform to the historical ideal in Christ,
and the universal type of doctrine as formulated
in the Confessions. In this sense, theology and
philosophy are indirectly related ; for theology, if
it is to be a clear expression of facts, must neces-
sarily adopt the most correct philosophic or
scientific form. The separation of the philosophic
form from the Christian content has, as in the case
of the Eastern Church, resulted in stagnation and

PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. 223

decay. Yet the facts themselves, the contents of
theology, are not deducible from the speculations
of philosophy, or the articles of any creed or
symbol. They are the product of the religious
self-consciousness ; and find there, and there
alone, their source and authority.

By thus clearly defining the spheres of philo-
sophy and of faith, and indicating the specific task
of each, Schleiermacher has done more for the
development of a scientific theology, on the
grounds of Protestant principles, than any single
thinker, since the time of the Reformation. He
was the first to show that religion has a distinct
basis lying outside of all rationalism and dog-
matism — a basis resting on the facts of the inner
human experience, fie was also the first to show
that theological doctrines are not once for all
fixed and stereotyped in written records or rigid
formulas, but that they must ever be the outcome
of the living, personal, progressive, spiritual con-
sciousness of the Church. On those lines, all that
is memorable in theological literature, since his
time, has proceeded ; and on those lines, too, lies
the hope of the future. Theology has, or ought to
have, no quarrel with either philosophy or science.
Each has its own distinct sphere, and each will
fulfil its purpose best when it sets out, free and
unfettered on its own pathway — the one giving us
the highest objective, the other the highest sub-
jective knowledge and certainty.

ETHICAL DOCTRINE.

The study of Ethics had a peculiar interest and
fascination for Schleiermacher. He was drawn to
it, as he was drawn to religion, not on account of
its intellectual discipline, or its theoretical pro-
blems, but because its phenomena formed part of
what was most essential and real in his own inner
nature. The type of his being was distinctly
ethical. He was a mora! genius — one of the
most original in modern times — and his labours in
the sphere of Ethics were primarily conditioned by
the need and the impulse of his being. They were
not occasional inter-meddlings with deep specula-
tive questions ; they were the products of his ever-
widening life — the outcome of his thought and
action. His ethical studies always kept pace with
the growth of his spirit. They were not formed
and stereotyped once for all : it was his constant
aim that they should be as perfect and true as
possible. To this cause it is that they owe their
organic form, and their stages of advance and
development. Indeed, one of the larger hopes of
his life, was to discover for Ethics a basis broad
and assured as that upon which physical science
rested. What he might have done, had he lived
224

ETHICAL DOCTRINE. 225

to give as complete a form to his ethical system as
he gave to his theological, we know not. As it is,
with the exception of the Monologues and the
Critique — written in the early years — his riper
ideas on the subject exist in a more or less frag-
mentary state in works published after his death,
and based on notes and memoranda, originally
intended for the class-room, and for the hour.

Schleiermacher divided the science of Ethics
into two parts, Philosophical Ethics and Christian
Ethics, the one discussing moral action from the
general position of humanity or reason, the other
looking at it from the more particular aspect of the
religious or Christian consciousness. The Philo-
sophical Ethics is carefully edited by the theologian,
Alexander Schweizer. There is a more recent
edition of the same work by Twesten, another
disciple, which, if it does not give the text so fully
as in the older edition, arranges it better, and has
the advantage of being prefaced by an excellent
general introduction to Schleiermacher's ethical
system. The Christian Ethics, edited by Ludwig
Jonas, is contained in one large volume of nearly
nine hundred pages, and may be taken as repre-
senting, in a pretty complete manner, Schleier-
macher's views on this special branch of the
subject. This work possesses great value, on
account of the originality of its conceptions, and
the admirable architectonic skill with which it is
put together. It is a wonderful monument to the

IS

226 SCHLEIERMACHER.

Christian piety and philosophic insight of the
writer ; and, had nothing else appeared under his
name, this alone would have placed him in the
first rank of modern ethical teachers. By it, he
gave an abiding impulse to the study of the moral
side of Christianity. It was by means of it also
that Schleiermacher became the recognised founder
of modern theological Ethics. Many have, since
his time, devoted themselves to the construction of
a Christian Ethic — and that with the most fruitful
results — yet no one, unless his pupil, Richard
Rothe, has produced anything that is at once so
scientific, so profound, and so far-reaching, as this
first attempt.

I. — PHILO.SOPHICAL ETHICS.

For Schleiermacher, Ethics did not consist in a
series of rules or maxims, for the guidance of the
moral life, which derive their authority from some
conditional principle, either of law, or experience,
or custom ; he regarded it as a process having its
basis in the final ground of knowing and being.
As real and certain as science or religion, so real
and certain is Ethics. Its existence must be re-
ferred to the one primal source of life and activity,
and it must be conceived as forming a part of the
great organism of human thought and reality in
their movement and becoming. Until the science

ETHICAL DOCTRINE. 227

of Ethics is studied from this point of view, it can
neither be understood as a whole, nor can the
living harmony of its parts be apprehended. A
bare description of the phenomena of moral action
is not Ethics, any more than a bare description of
the facts of nature constitutes physical science :
what is needed, in each case, is a principle from
which all the facts can be evolved and around
which they can be grouped as around a common
centre.

In thus demanding for the ethical process a
fundamental principle deeper than mere law or
custom, Schleiermacher is at one with Kant and
Schelling, Fichte and Hegel. Nevertheless, he
differs from these philosophers as to the character
he ascribes to this principle. Kant, and particu-
larly Fichte, made the basis of morality purely
. subjective and individual, so that each carries
within himself the infinite vocation and the infinite
tendency towards duty. Schelling and Hegel, on
the contrary, represented morality on its distiiictly
objective side as abandonment to the universe be-
yond whose laws freedom cannot pass. Schleier-
m:icher chose the middle course between these
opposite views. According to him, the principle
of morality is to be found in the combination of
the individual and the universal, the subjective and
the objective. Without the individual there can
be no nature which can become object of reason,
without the universal there can be no reason which

228 SCHLEIERMACHER.

can perfect itself in empirical knowledge. But the
ethical process, as the action of the rational upon
the natural, demands the existence of both these
factors. It is the organic union of reason and
nature in the individual and the race ; or such in-
fluence of reason upon nature that it tends to be-
come its perfect organ and symbol. This move-
ment of mind which seeks to dominate and
rationalize the entire sphere of nature — which
strives to press into its service the cosmic material
— is described by Schleiermacher as a permeation
of nature by reason. It is the continuous realiza-
tion by the human spirit of its purpose and func-
tion in the world. When the outer becomes
thoroughly permeated by the inner, when there is
an absolute interpenetration of the world of things
and of humanity by the conscious spirit, the highest
form of being is reached, and Ethics has fulfilled
its purpose. " The ethical process only terminates
with the positing of a nature which has become
altogether reason, and of a reason in which all has
become nature." Such an absolute unification of
the two is, however, never perfectly attained, since
the contrast between the physical and the spiritual
is always present, sometimes more predominantly
spiritual, at other times more predominantly phy-
sical. The sphere of Ethics is thus alway.s the
joint spheres of reason and of nature. The higher
moral action is, the more is it a perfect combina-
tion of the two spheres ; and the lower any action

ETHICAL DOCTRINE. 229

is, the more does it represent nature in its rawness
and isolation. " All ethical knowledge is but the
expression of a constantly originating but never
completed rationalization of nature." (Natur-
werdens der Vernunft). *

This union of reason and nature in Ethics is
based on the original union of these factors in the
world and in man. Nature and reason exist for
each other, as by a kind of pre-ordained harmony.
In every form of existence — in plant life and in
animal life — -they are present in active combination.
Material being does not exist by itself and alone :
there enters into it spiritual being ; and spiritual
being does not exist in the world as simple being ;
it is always spiritual being as influenced by the
material. That is, the reason that in Ethics acts
upon the world is not pure reason ; it is reason in
combination with nature ; and the world that is
acted upon already possesses, though in a limited
degree, the properties of reason. Nature and
reason are, in fact, but different aspects of one and
the same being. In degree, or quantitatively, they
differ ; in kind, or qualitatively, they are identical.
The true essence of mind and of matter is reason.
Natural being is a limited ideal being, and ideal
being, when it reaches its lowest, or vanishing point,

* Entwurf eines Systems der ^ittenUhre^ p. 47 ; u. also pp. 25-
37, and Twesten's Introduction to his edition of ychleiermacher's
Grundriss der philosophischen Ethik, pp. xiv.-xl.

230 SCHLEIEKMACHER.

passes over into real being. Hence it is, as
Schleiermacher constantly reiterates, that moral
and natural law, though differing as to the manner
of their manifestation, are at base the same. They
are the realization of the highest intellectual prin-
ciple, or the expression of the being of reason in
nature.

Yet, ever active as is the tendency to the union
of reason and nature in everj' form of existence —
a tendency which finds its metaphysical explana-
tion in the primitive unity of the ideal and the
real — it is in man alone that the activity of the
universal reason becomes ethical. He is the apex,
or culmination, of the ideal, its last and highest
stage in the evolution from the elementary vitality
of the earth to vegetation, from vegetation to
animalization, and from animalization to human-
ization. What was unconsciously active in all the
lower forms of development — in the mechanical
and chemical, the vegetable and animal processes
— becomes in him consciously active. Man, and
man alone, recognises the contrast between reason
and nature. The ideal, the rational, has arrived
in his spirit at such a degree of perfection that he
knows that he is more than an unconscious link in
the universal life-chain. He is a conscious actor —
one who can, by the inner determination of his
being, influence nature, and make it the organ or
implement of his activity. The moral process is
consequently confined exclusively to man, or

ETHICAL DOCTRINE. 23 1

rather to humanity, since it is in humanity that
the action of reason comes to its complete mani-
festation.

By thus limiting Ethics to the being of reason in
nature, Schleiermacher raises the science of moral
action above the sphere of the conditional and the
unreal, the hypothetical and the possible. For
hirn, the perfect ideal, the highest good of humanity
is not simply a duty, a shall, a categorical im-
perative : it is the natural and free realization of
moral being — a form of being which is as real as
that of nature itself. There is a conscious evolu-
tion, a development, of the moral reason in indi-
viduals, which is as fixed and as certain as that
which takes place unconsciously in the physical
world. In the one, as in the other, there is an
"ought," a necessity, but it is internal, not external ;
a necessity grounded in the ultimate basis of all :
the absolute unity of reason and nature. Hence,
according to this view, freedom has only a relative
existence. We are free in as far as we can act
from our own inner being ; we are not free in as
far as we can be determined by the objective whole,
of which we are an integral part. Evil is, therefore,
regarded as a negative factor in the union of
reason and nature. It is not a true ethical con-
ception, and can find no real place in the speculative
construction of Ethics. The thought of the good,
as the universal ethical form, can exist without the
contrast which it creates. Otherwise sin would

232 SCHLEIERMACHER.

constitute a Manichsean dualism. The sphere of
evil is the empirical, human life ; and sin exists
there, not by absolute necessity, but through the
act of the human will as influenced by the sensuous
environment.*

It is in this way that Schleiermacher hoped to
place the science of Ethics on an intelligent
foundation, and to give to it the same certainty as
is possessed by physical science. Indeed, in the
light of his system, only two fundamental sciences
are possible : the ethical, or the science of reason
(Ethics and history) and the physical, or the
science of nature (natural science and theory of
nature). These, corresponding respectively to the
great world contrasts of the intellectual and the
material, embrace the totality of existence. Under
the one form or the other, every particular branch
of science can be classified. And as the ground of
reality upon which they all ultimately rest is
identical, they are, as objects of knowledge, equally
true and valid. The method, too, in which the
ethical and the physical are to be studied, is the
same, the only difference being that caused by the
content of each. The one expresses the action of
the ideal upon the real, the other describe."! the
action of the real upon the ideal. Taken in con-
junction, they build up the highest unity of know-
ledge, the true philosophj', or world-wisdom, f

* EntwurJ der Sittenlehte, pp. 52-67. \ Ibid., pp. 32-36, 85-86.

ETHICAL DOCTRINE. 233

The actibn of reason in nature manifests itself in
three forms, each of which, in its own fashion, re-
presents the whole ethical life. There is, first, the
form that expresses the various ways in which
nature and reason are combined, or the progressive
unity of the two in every stage of existence, from
the lowest to the highest ; then there is that which
expresses the different ways in which reason as an
active force dwells in human nature ; and, lastly,
there is the form whose function is to describe the
method in which this rational force acts in the in-
dividual and in the whole. These aspects of the
being of reason in man and in nature are severally
designated the doctrine of goods, the doctrine of
virtues, and the doctrine of duties ; and they con-
stitute for Schleiermacher the natural and necessary
parts into which the science of speculative ethics
must be divided. The three describe different
sides of the same object, but always in such a
manner that each of the three presupposes the
other two. And yet, in each there is something
which the others fail to accentuate. For this
reason, ethics can only be adequately represented
when the various forms of its manifestation are
considered in their relation to each other. The
weak point in the ethical systems of Schleier-
macher's time — particularly those of Kant and
Fichte — consisted in the fact that they attempted
to solve the moral problem by confining themselves
entirely to the conceptions of duty and of virtue.

234 SCHLEIERMACHER.

One of the notable services of Schleiermacher was
to show that these conceptions are incomplete, and
incapable of being established, apart from the idea
of the highest good.

Schleiermacher further tries to justify this three-
fold development on the ground that an analogous
development takes place in physical science.
There we find the mechanical, the chemical, and
the organic — forms of nature which, instepd of
being mutually antagonistic, are in reality separate
representations of the one idea of nature. The
mechanical — or physics as the expression of the
living, reproductive forms in a state of rest — cor-
responds to the doctrine of the highest good ; the
dynamic — or physics as the system of living forces
— corresponds to the doctrine of virtue ; and the
organic — or physics as the system of variously
inter-related movement — corresponds to the doc-
trine of duty. Such a similarity in the mode of
the development of the physical and the ethical is,
as Schleiermacher thought, no accident or coin-
cidence ; it has its root in the peculiar nature of
speculative knowledge.*

I. Doctrine of the Highest Good.

The doctrine of the Highest Good and its
elements (Gilterlehre) has a pre-eminent place
assigned to it in Schleiermacher's ethical system.

* Entwurf der Sittenlehre, pp. 78-80.

ETHICAL DOCTRINE. 235

The conception of the highest good — under which
all forms of the moral good are subsumed —
represents in his view the ideal and problem of
the entire moral process. It occupies in his ethics
a place akin to that ascribed to the idea of know-
ledge in the Dialectic. This part of his subject is,
therefore, described with a care and fulness which
are wholly wanting when he comes to discuss the
doctrines of virtue and duty.

As every moral good is determined by the
action of reason in nature, it must bear the mani-
fold impress of this originally active principle. It
must be organ and symbol, universal and indi-
vidual. These are the distinctive forms of the
activity of the moral reason, and in all ethical pro-
ducts each of the four is present, though not
always in the same manner or with the same force.
Indifferent or sinful actions are consequently ex-
cluded from the sphere of Ethics because they are
the outcome only of the partial union of reason
and nature.

Human reason, as the organizing activity, the
all-dominating principle, moulds and transfigures
physical being. Its action is formative and ex-
pansive. It extends and develops the potential
or original union of reason in nature. It gives
shape to the raw stuff, the rude materials of the
world, and it groups and classifies the stages of its
development. Under its influence nature becomes
an instrument, or organ, (opyauov, Werkzeug).

236 schleip:rmacher.

Reason is the spontaneous, directive power, and
it acts upon nature so as to fashion it and make it
subservient to its purpose. This is what is called
the "organizing" activity of reason. But along
with the organizing activity, there always co-exists
the "symbolizing" activity. It is the function of
this activity to manifest reason in nature. Its
character is descriptive, not formative, as in the
other activity. Its most general form is conscious-
ness, and every symbol is an image or representa-
tion of consciousness'. The symbolizing activity
represents reason, and its interpenetration of
nature, as knowable. In other words, nature, which
is the organ of reason, likewise becomes its symbol.
Now, each of these activities of reason, the
formative not less than the representative, are in-
separably connected in the reality of huinan life.
They condition and limit each other. They are
related as willing and knowing are related ; the
" organizing " activity corresponding to will, and
the "symbolizing" to thought. There can, there-
fore, be no organizing without symbolizing, no
permeation of nature by reason without also the
exhibition of reason as the sovereign power in the
universe. It is only as we conquer and system-
atize the material world that it becomes intelligible.
We cannot, in short, know and feel nature until
reason has first entered into it as an organizing,
shaping, and classifying principle. Every inter-
penetration or unity of reason and nature is thus

ETHICAL DOCTRINE. 237

both organ and symbol. Sometimes it is more
distinctly organ, and then reason appears as will ;
at other times it is more distinctly symbol, and,
in that case, reason assumes the form of under-
standing. When the organizing side prevails, we
have the activity of reason represented as in agri-
culture, architecture, and mechanics ; when it is
the symbolizing side that is supreme, we have the
same activity as is manifested in science, art, and
the kindred disciplines.*

If, however, the contrasted activities of reason in
nature condition and limit each other, it is easy to
see why the idea of the good must consist in the
union of both. A moral good is the organizing
and symbolizing of nature — the ever persistent end
which the universal reason sets before it. Begin-
ning with the first, or nature as the transition point
for the operation of reason, it passes on to the
second, or nature as resting in and with the reason ;
and the proce.ss only reaches its highest, or perfect
form, when reason becomes nature and nature be-
comes reason. Every moral product is thus at once
organ and symbol. An activity which is a symbol,
but not an organ, does not come within the sphere
of the moral process, and possesses no ethical

value, t

The doctrine of the good further rests on the
contrast between the universal and the individual

* Entwurf der Sittenhhre, pp. 88-93. \ Ibid., pp. 114-116.

238 SCHLEIERMACHER.

activity of the reason. Moral life and conduct
must bear this two-fold character. As related to
reason — the one, identical principle of all action —
every ethical product must be the same and uni-
versal. And yet, as related to the individual,
every ethical product is separate and distinct.
This differentiation of moral action is grounded in
the oritjinal individuality, the primitive and sub-
jective peculiarity of human beings, by which each
moral individual becomes a world to himself, pos-
sessing his own significance and vocation and com-
bining in his own personality all the distinctive
forces of humanity. Universality and individuality,
humanity and personality, are consequently in-
separable moments in the construction of the
morally good. If the being of reason can only be
perfectly represented in the totality of human
nature, or the social organism, it is only by means
of the individual that it can find its realization
there at all. In fact, the two forms — reason as
universal in human nature and as differentiated in
individuals — cannot be separated. Since, without
the characteristic of universality, there could be no
rational being ; and, without the characteristic of
particularity, there could be no natural being. In
the moral process identity and individuality are
thus always found in combination. "Universal
reason, with the absence of personality, is incom-
plete, and the same thing can be said of individual
reason which lacks the impress of universality.''

ETHICAL DOCTRINE. 239

The true ethical can only exist in the idea of a
community which is composed of separate human
beings, or in the idea of a separate human being
in his relation to the whole.*

Organization and symbolization, identity and
difference, are thus the essential elements o* all
moral life. But they are more than this. They
constitute, in the method of their combination, the
distinct spheres of ethical action. The peculiar
types of the vast complex of subordinate goods
owe their origin to the predominance of the uni-
versal or individual elements, and can be classified
accordingly. Universal organizing activity creates
the sphere of commerce, while the individual or-
ganizing activity produces the sphere of property.
On the other hand, universal symbolizing activity
gives rise to the different forms of thought and
language, or science ; and the individual symboliz-
ing activity constitutes the province of feeling with
its manifold representations, such as religion and
aesthetics.t

Corresponding to these spheres of ethical action,
and arising from the intercourse of individuals in
each, are the four ethical relations of right,
sociability, faith, and revelation. The relation of
right is the moral co-existence of individuals in
common action. It implies possession and com-

* Entwurf der Sittailehre, pp. 93-96, 1 16-120.
\ Ibid., pp. 98-99, 122-142.

240 SCHLEIERMACHER.

munity, wealth and trust. Sociability is produced
by the moral relation of individuals as exclusive
proprietors. Domestic right and hospitality are
the essential conditions of this relation. Faith —
not religious faith, but certainty as to the universal
trust-worthiness of thought and speech — indicates
the relation of men to each other in the community
of knowledge, or the mutual dependence of teacher
and taught on the common use of language.
Revelation — self-revelation — is the moral relation
of individuals to one another in the separateness
of their feelings, or that condition by which what
is exclusively the feeling of one can be imparted
to another. These four relations are characteristic
of the whole human race, and determine every
form of moral action. But, though they are
universal in their extent, they are not necessarily
the same in the case of each and all.*

Now, as every kind of ethical activity is defined
by the above relations of right and sociability,
faith and revelation, the highest good must be
sought for, not in the individual per se, but in the
individual as related to the great moial organisms
which are produced within these spheres of rela-
tions. These organisms — called by Schleier-
macher "the perfect ethical forms" — are the State,
Society, the School, and the Church. The neces-
sary link between the individual and each of these

* Entwurf der Sittenhhre, pp. 142-156.

ETHICAL DOCTRINE. 24I

domains of moral being is the family. This is the
basis of all higher ethical developments, the first
and most elementary representation of the highest
good. Here the one-sidedness of individuals,
indicated by sexual distinction and psychical
difference, is removed, and the naturally imperfect
personality of each is rendered complete by the
physical and spiritual union of monogamistic
marriage. It is here, too, that the foundations of
authority, of fellowship, of knowledge and of
piety, or parental obedience, are first laid. Indeed,
the idea of the family enters as a dominating and
primal condition, into the entire moral process.
It holds within itself the promise and the potency
of the State and the Church, of science and social
fellowship ; and without it these higher forms of
personal and moral being could have not come
into existence.

The State, the first of the perfect forms of
ethical being, is the creation of the universal
organizing activity of reason. It is a vast, living
unity composed of groups of families allied
together for the general good and the general
action of the whole. Its natural ground is the
horde, or the common individuality of tribal
masses. Only, the State is related to the horde as
the conscious to the unconscious. It is a higher
development of the individual fellowships, and
community, than obtains in the lower and more
primitive stage. The life it represents is not the
16

242 SCHLEIERMACHER.

life of tribe or clan, but the life of a people or a
nation — life possessing advanced organization and
fixity of abode. It is, in short, the identity of the
people and the soil, since a nomadic people can
scarcely be called a State.

As a peculiar form of the community of
individuals, the State is regarded by Schleier-
macher as an ethical person, bound by the
relations, not only of kinship and common need,
but also by the conditions of authorities and
subjects, rulers and ruled. Schleiermacher dis-
carded the old idea, so prevalent in the theories of
the eighteenth century, that the State is a creation
of mutual contract or agreement entered into for
purposes of self-protection and advancement. A
contract is the result rather than the cause of
State organization ; and, even if it were not, it
would fail to explain the inner life and harmony
of the great body politic. These can only be
understood when the State is conceived as an
organic whole — a living unity, a real personality —
which is the product of the moral nature of men
in their efforts to develop the instincts and capa-
cities of their being. The ethical aim of the State
is not therefore simply the protection and benefit
of the individual ; it is the perfecting of the whole
by means of the individual, and the individual by
means of the whole.

Society, the next form of ethical being, is the
union of men for individual organizing activity.

ETHICAL DOCTRINE. 243

The aim of social fellowship is the mutual culture
of individuals. It proceeds upon the recognition
of personal rank and grades of culture and en-
lightenment ; and its sphere is boundless as the
intercourse of humanity. It is in no way limited
by the State ; for persons of similar tastes and
education, no matter to what nation they belong,
are drawn more closely to one another than they
are to persons of their own nationality who occupy
a lower plane of thought and life. Friendship,
hospitality, courtesy, are some of the manifesta-
tions of this organism or community. Although
free sociability cannot compete in ethical dignity
with the State, or the other perfect forms of being,
it is of the utmost importance in the development
of man's social and emotional nature. It does for
his craving after human friendship what the State
does for his political instincts, what science does
for his aspirations after knowledge, and what
religion does for the perfecting of his religious
feeling.

Another of the ethical forms is the School, taken
in its widest sense ; or the national community of
knowledge. This organization is produced by the
universal symbolizing activity. It, not less than
the State, is founded on the idea of the national
unity, with its distinct individuality of thought
and speech. Yet it is not dependent upon the
. State ; it is rather a co-ordinate existence repre-
senting a different side of the national unity.

244 SCHLEIERMACHER.

The community of knowledge is conditioned
through the awaking of the distinction between
the learned and the public. This distinction
corresponds to that which obtains in the State
between the governing classes and those who are
governed, and is the first requisite towards a pro-
gressive civilization. Until it is accentuated,
families and tribes are ruled by traditional codes,
from which there is scRrcely ever any divergence ;
and they live alongside each other, in homogeneous
masses, without division of labour or grades of
life. The activity of the public is more of a
materially productive kind ; that of the learned
more of a formally productive kind. The one
occupies itself with knowledge as arising from the
organic function and from feeling ; the other pro-
duces knowledge in relation to the idea of knowing
(die Idee des Wissens). The learned exercise a
permanent, though elementary, influence on the
public by means of the School-system. A higher
influence still, and one which qualifies individuals
for the functions of the learned, is obtained through
the institution of the University. The most per-
fect organic whole of knowledge is the Academy,
or the unity composed of the teachers and masters
in every branch of science. This organization
occupies the place in the sphere of knowing that
the State occupies in the sphere of doing; it is the
highest development or unity of all that comes
under the universal symbolizing activity of reason,

ETHICAL DOCTRINE. 245

even as the State is the highest development or
unity of all that is included in the universally
organizing activity.

The Church, the last of the perfect ethical
forms, is a religious community existing in virtue
of the symbolic activity of the individual. It is
defined as "the organic combination of a mass of
men — of the same inner type, and with the dis-
tinction of clergy and laity — for the subjective
activity of the cognitive function." All views that
regard it ais an institution for the repression of the
passions, or as an absolute ethical community to
which all the other forms are subordinate must
therefore be taken as incomplete — being either too
narrow or too wide. It is essential to the idea of
the Church that it be an organic unity brought
about by the development of a peculiar type of
the religious consciousness in its relation to the
universal moral reason.

Like the State, the Church rests on the family,
and the primitive, or patriarchal condition of men,
as living in hordes. It also — and in this it agrees
with the School as well as with the State — advances
beyond this original and organic condition by
means of the contrast of higher and lower. The
distinction of priests and people corresponds to
the distinction between rulers and ruled, or learned
and unlearned.; and it is only with the awaking of
this distinction that the religious consciousness

246 SCHLEIERMACHER.

begins to rise above the patriarchal or unconscious
state.

In the homogeneous mass of humanity the
reh"gious feeling, or typical potency, is the same ;
yet in the process of development it presents con-
siderable variations. The form of its manifestation
is always art — religion being related to art as
knowledge is to language. But the system of art
and cult which each Church creates and fosters,
differs according to the relations of knowledge and
temperament existing in the religious unity con-
stituting the particular Church. In the ethical
religious feeling, it assumes an eminently free and
spiritual aspect, while in the natural religions it
becomes more enslaved and physical in its ten-
dency. Further, the striking modifications which
temperament exerts on religious feeling are well
known. The religion of India is, for example,
phlegmatic ; that of Greece sanguine ; that of
Judea choleric ; and the Christian religion is the
religion of sorrow. These definite forms, or
schematisms, of feeling, give rise to the different
kinds of religion — such as Fetischism, Polytheism,
and Monotheism — and to the several stages of art,
or outer representations of feeling, that are associ-
ated with them.*

' Entwurf der SittenUhre, pp. 257-327; Reden, pp. 123-130.

ETHICAL DOCTRINE. 247

2. Doctrine of Virtues.

The object of the Doctrine of Virtues {Tugend-
lehre), the second main division of Schleier-
macher's philosophical ethics, is defined as being
" not the totality of reason as acting upon the
totality of nature, but reason in its relation to
individual men." It describes how the moral
principle dwells in each as the force which pro-
duces those separate personal actions, the sum of
which, as represented in the corporate action of
humanity, constitutes the entire ethical process.
To know how this takes place is as necessary as to
know how reason interpenetrates all existence ; for
it is only as individuals become virtuous that they
are helping to realize the highest good, and it is
only as the highest good is obtained through the
combined energy of all that the virtue of each is
secured and perfected. " Every sphere of the
highest good demands all the virtues, and every
virtue passes through all the spheres of the highest
good." The being of virtue, like the being of
reason, is one and indivisible, so that he who
possesses a single virtue possesses all the virtues.
Still, although this is the essential character of
virtue, the mode of its manifestation in the indi-
vidual varies, even as reason varies in its union
with nature. It is on this fact of individual varia-
tion that Schleiermacher bases his classification of

248 SCHLEIERMACHER.

the virtues. He arranges them under the two
divisions of Disposition {Gesinnung) and Skill
{Fertigkeit). The first expresses the ideal form,
the inner, undivided nature of virtue as existing in
reason ; the second regards virtue in its temporal
form, or in its active relation to the world of
humanity. Both aspects of moral action — the
ideal and the real — are always found in conjunc-
tion. " We are not to think of disposition and
skill as if they were separate, as if the one could
exist without the other ; on the contrary, we are to
consider virtue as appearing under both forms,
at one time more as disposition, and at another
more as skill. The first, or ideal element in action,
is fundamental, since, apart from it, the real
element would have na significance. Virtue as
skill is represented in its effect or organization."

The contrast between the ideal and the temporal
is further crossed by the contrast of knowing and
representing {Erkennen, Darstellen) — the original
and necessary phases of all intellectual activity—
or that directed from without inwards, and that
proceeding from within outwards. These con-
trasts, in intersecting each other, give rise, in their
turn, to the four cardinal virtues of wisdom and
love, discretion and perseverance. Disposition as
knowledge is wisdom ; existing as representation
it is love. Knowledge, in its relation to circumstan-
ces, forms discretion ; while representation, under
the same condition, is perseverance. This division,

ETHICAL DOCTRINE. 249

when rightly apprehended, coincides with the
ancient Greek division of the virtues into (ppovrja-n,
SiKaiocTvvri, idKppocnjvt] and avSpeia. Wisdom is that
quality through which all human action, whether
of feeling or of knowledge, receives an ideal form.
Love is a relation of reason to nature — the entrance
of reason into the organic process, or reason in its
effort to become soul — reason being taken as
active and loving, nature as passive and loved.
Life is love ; creation is love. Love to nature is
only moral, as it is love to God ; and love to God
is only true in as far as it is love to nature. Self-
love is not moral, except in proportioQ as it
embraces every other form of love ; and all other
forms are only true in proportion as they include
self-love. Love in its effect can never be anything
else than what is posited under the concept of
wisdom ; only there is this difference between the
two : love is reason in action upon nature, wisdom
is reason as active in nature. Discretion is the
production, in the empirical subject, of all the acts
of knowing which go to form in him the com-
ponent parts of the moral process ; or, in other
words, it is the production of moral concepts. As
general discretion, it corresponds to " understand-
ing,'' and manifests itself as good sense and
shrewdness. In its individual character it is what
we call " soul," or the power of so arranging moral
ends that one's personal individuality may find
expression therein. Perseverance represents the

2SO SCHLEIERMACHER.

entire sphere of what is contained in the idea of
end or purpose. It is expressive of our battle with
the world, and is related to love as discretion is to
wisdom.*

3. The Doctrine of Duties.

The Doctrine of Duties {Pflichtenlehre), the
last great division of scientific Ethics, describes
the ethical process in movement. It takes to do
with the moral action of the individual, and
delineates the methods adopted by him in the
attainment of the highest good. In seeking to do
this, it shows that every action which conforms to
duty must have (i) a general reference to the
moral idea in its totality, and likewise to the dis-
tinctly exclusive will, or definite moral sphere ; (2)
it must have a connection with present and ante-
cedent conditions, and yet be an absolutely original
production : that is, it must be personally free and
objectively necessary ; (3) it must be a decision, in
the midst of conflicting duties ; yet so that it does
not imply that there is any real conflict between
duties ; in other words, that each individual
momentarily serves, by means of his own peculiar
action, the interest of all. Isolated and egoistic
action lacks the ethical physiognomy ; for the
individual, as a member of society, must make, as
his own, the entire moral problem. Particular

* Enlwurf dtr Sitienlehre, pp. 328-41S.

ETHICAL DOCTRINE. 25 I

action has, therefore, an ethical value in its relation
to the action of the whole. On the other hand,
the action of the whole ceases to be moral when
unrelated to that of the individual. There thus
runs through the totality of all action the antithesis
between community and appropriation {Gemein-
schaft, Aneigneii). The one imparts to life its
organic completeness, the other secures the per-
sonal independence of each individual that goes to
build up the moral whole.

Duties are classified according to this principle
of the relation between universal and individual
community of production and action. Universal
community of productive action gives duties of
law (Rechtspflicht) ; universal appropriating action
produces duties of vocation {^Berufspflicht) ; indi-
vidual community of productive action is the
sphere of love {Liebespflichi) ; and individual
appropriation creates the class of duties known as
those of conscience {Gewissenspflicht). These four
moral spheres condition each other, so that no
action in any one of them can fulfil the condition
of duty unless there enter into it the other three.

The duty of law expresses every action of the
universal reason on nature, both in its personal
and external aspects. It is further defined by the
following formulae : (i) Enter into community, or
association, with the whole, but so that your
entrance into it may, at the same time, be an
appropriation ; (2) enter into community with the

252 SCHLEIERMACHER.

reservation of your entire individuality ; (3) enter
into community in such a manner that you may
already find yourself therein, and so find yourself
in it that you may enter into it ; (4) in all per-
formance of duty so act that the inw^ard impulse
and the outward occasion may coincide.

The other classes of duty are likewise more
explicitly described, and have their appropriate
formulae ascribed to them. In duties of vocation,
the objective action of the identical reason upon
nature is represented as a fashioning of nature in
the personality and for the personality ; that is, as
not only cultivating the capacity for knowledge,
but as giving shape to outer nature. The formulae
in this sphere have a universal reference. The
duties of love confine themselves to the activity of
personal asssociation. Its principal formula is
that each should find his place in the existing
moral society, and should be willing to enter into
all the relationships of the same ; especially those
indicated by marriage and friendship. What is
distinctive in the duties of conscience is that they
have to do with individual productive action ; and,
concerning this, each one, seeing he is the morally
productive agent, must be his own judge. But, as
the individual conscience is only a special form of
the conscience of the race, this action, although
individual and personal, has a universal tendency
as securing the advantage of the whole.*

* Entwurf der Sitttenlehre, pp. 419-479.

ETHICAL DOCTRINE. 253

II. — CHRISTIAN ETHICS.

Christian Ethics is treated by Schleiermacher
as a branch of Christian doctrine. Not less than
dogmatics it presupposes the existence of faith and
piety, and owes its peculiar character to the fact
that it is a distinct phase of the religious conscious-
ness. Dogmatics represents the Christian con-
sciousness as relatively fixed and at rest ; Ethics
represents it as in movement, as an impetus. The
one regards pious feeling as it crystallizes itself
into a belief, an idea ; the other pictures it as find-
ing expression in action. The object of both is the
same, but they view it from different sides. Chris-
tian self-consciousness being given as the inner
condition of the soul, dogmatics has to answer the
question what it is that ought to be. Ethics, in
like circumstances, has to indicate what it is that
ought to become. These two — that which deals
with propositions of faith and that which deals
with forms of conduct — make up together the
totality of Christian doctrine. What cannot be
directly classified under either must be referred to
some other sphere, such as history or art.

Now, if Christian Ethics is to be taken as a
separate and supplementary part of Christian
doctrine, it is evident that its most characteristic
element must be piety, or that inner condition of
the spirit which results from communion with God.

254 SCHLEIERMACHER.

But communion with God — fellowship of the
human with the divine — is only possible through
the redemptive act of Christ. Christian Ethics
must then not only take note of this communion,
but must be grounded in it — must find here its
being and starting-point. Accordingly, Schleier-
macher defines the science of Christian Ethics as
" the exposition of communion with God — as
determined through communion with Christ the
Redeemer — in so far as this communion is the
motive of all the actions of the Christian. It is
the description of that method of acting which
proceeds from the supremacy of the Christianly
determined self-consciousness;" such a descrip-
tion having the force of law for all who are within
the Christian Church, and for whom there is no
other law than what can be developed from
absolute communion with God.*

The idea of Christian Ethics is thus ultimately
evolved from the idea of the Church — the funda-
mental idea of Schleiermacher's religious system.
As it is within this sphere that Christian doctrine can
have any real value, so also it is here that Christian
Ethics comes into existence and possesses validity.
The Church is the place where alone the devout
consciousness appears as a unifying, dominating
impulse. Outside of it the question how to live
and act in relation to the Redeemer has clearly no

* Die christliche Sitte, pp. 31-35. ' i , ,

ETHICAL DOCTRINE.

2SS

meaning ; for it is in the Church that the condi-
tions of the Christian life are at all possible.
" Even as in dogmatics '' — to quote the words of
Reuter — " all dogmas are described in their rela-
tion to the person of Christ, or rather to the sub-
jective condition of faith as the indwelling of Christ
in the soul, so in morals, all ethical propositions
appear as effects of this faith, as effects of the
impulse imparted by the historical development of
the Church, and originally conditioned by the
person of Christ. The Church, as the realization of
the absolutely perfect religion, therefore actualizes,
or fully expresses, the divine life. Believers are
related to it as organs or instruments. They in-
deed work, but all their actions are, as to their
result, representations of the one Spirit dwelling in
the Church. Their actions no doubt spring from
the movements and determinations of the religious
self-consciousness ; nevertheless, the creative sub-
stance from which the distinct forms of individual
morality are fashioned is the divine Spirit of the
Church." * In the Church, however, there is an
individual as well as a universal element. It is
through the individual that the life of the whole
can receive an impetus, and rise to higher things.
On the other side, the action of the individual is
determined by the whole, of which he is a part.
But though there is thus a mutual influence of the

* Theologische Studien und Kritiken, \ 844, pp. 608-609.

256 SCHLEIERMACHER.

personal upon the common life, and of the common
life on the personal, there is no disharmony
between the two. The divine Spirit which makes
the Church one organic whole, and without which
no one can become a member of this whole, is the
same in all. Yet it reveals itself differently in
each, according to the individualized reason which
it already finds in each. It is to this manifestation
of the one divine Spirit in the individualized
reason, and its diverse influence on the understand-
ing and the will, that the Church owes its infinite
variety and its continuous growth and renewal
through all the ages.*

From this description it will at once appear how
Christian Ethics is related to Philosophical Etliics,
and how the one differs from the other. The sphere
and obligation of each, though separate and distinct,
are still related. The one is the product of Chris-
tian faith, the other of the common reason. What
the former promulgates is not necessarily bind-
ing on the latter, for if nothing is actually binding
on the Christian but what is also binding on the
rational man, Christianity would in reality be
superfluous. " Yet much as it is essential to both
that they be considered as constituting distinct
spheres, it is impossible that what the one regards
as moral the other can regard as immoral. In
spite of the fact that the one cannot produce the

* Christl. Sitte, pp. 55-73.

ETHICAL DOCTRINE. 257

content of the other — seeing that each springs
from its own principle — it follows that the two so
far agree that there is posited in the one the reality
and substance of all that is most distinctive of the
other." The fundamental view, the content, of the
one is not absolutely different from that of the
other. There are steps and grades of the moral ;
but morality is really one. Christianity brings
nothing entirely new or alien into the domain of
Ethics. It rather supplements the general principle
of all morality. The ethics of Christianity is
indeed the highest development of the moral
reason of humanity, and its spirit — the divine
Spirit — is human reason conceived as universal
activity. Were there no such affinity between
Christian and Philosophical Ethics, did the range
of the one lie entirely outside the range of the
other, ethics would assume an absolutely dualistic
character, and we could at no time be sure whether
clearly defined Christian action might not be
antagonistic to the universal laws of morality. It
is in form not in content that the two are different.
Philosophical Ethics originates in the principle of
the moral reason of humanity, and regards the
individual in relation to the race ; Christian Ethics
starts with the Christian consciousness, and regards
the individual in his relation to the Church. The
sphere of the one is as wide as humanity, and its
tendency corresponds to the philosophy of history.
The sphere of the other is, on the contrary, narrower

17

258 SCHLEIERMACHER.

in its area, and if its aim is towards universality
its propositions have binding obligation only upon
such as have entered into the fellowship of the
Church.*

Christian Ethics is thus akin to, but distinct
from, dogma and speculation. It is the descrip-
tion of the devout consciousness as accounting
for human action, the analysis of life as it moves
within the boundaries of the new communion
founded by Jesus Christ. It consequently pre-
supposes the capacity of man for divine fellowship,
and his inability to develop this capacity, apart
from the mediation of the Redeemer. In Christian
Ethics, Christ and the Church occupy the centre.
It is here that communion with God is possible,
and that men can enter into the state of salvation.
Around this centre, on the outside, lies the vast
world of the weary, the sinful, and the heavy-
laden. This is the other, and the necessary part
of the picture — the dark background, where the
moral life is fettered, and the development of the
religious consciousness hindered. As salvation is
the positive side of the Christian consciousness—
the side where man finds his being in God — so the
negative side of this same consciousness is sin —
the state where man's life exists in isolation from
the divine fellowship. It is on this contrast between
sin and salvation that the Christian life rests,

■" Christl. Sitte, pp. 24-31, 75-77.

ETHICAL DOCTRINE. 259

and by means of which it can be understood. " If
we hold that communion with God is conditioned
through Christ, we must also hold that without
union to Christ it does not exist. Separate from
redemption, man is in a state of separation from
God, and unable to remove the ground of separa-
tion. This state can only be thought of as a state
of antagonism to the Christian position — therefore
of antagonism to God, seeing He is the determin-
ing power within the Christian domain. That is,
we must regard it as sin. The entire representa-
tion of what is most peculiar to the religious
consciousness in Christianity, is produced through
the constitutive existence of sin as the unavoidable,
universal human condition outside the community
in Christ. But the state of salvation or blessed-
ness, is the state of communion with God, effectu-
ated by Christ, and must be viewed as entirely
different from the condition of man without the
pale of the divine communion." *

In its historical manifestation. Christian salvation
is not, however, to be conceived as if it were
absolutely perfect. For if it were, man's being
would be in a state of complete rest, lacking noth-
ing, and impelled to no activity. There would, in
that case, be no growth, no struggle, no ethic, no
life as we know it. But, as it is. Christian blessed-
ness is not absolutely perfect ; it is blessedness in

* Chrisll. Sitie, pp. 35-36.

260 SCHLEIERMACHER.

the process of attaining perfection. Only as it is
considered in this light, can the consciousness of
blessedness become a motive to action. Even in
the case of Christ Himself — whose communion
and blessedness are original and absolute — there
could be no impulsion to an outward life, apart
from His connection with the race, and His com-
passion upon its woes. " By taking upon Him
the being of all. His self-consciousness became a
feeling for all, and He may be said to have borne
by sympathy our imperfection in blessedness ; so
that our formula also holds good in His case, and
a defect in blessedness must be predicated of Him
in order that it may become an impulse. This
defect consisted in His extended self-conscious-
ness, in His fellow-feeling with our misery ; and it
became in Him the motive to His whole redemp-
tive activity." *

The blessedness of the Christian life — never
completely existent, but always in the process of
becoming — manifests itself in us by means of the
alternation of pleasure and pain, and the in-
difference of both. These states, corresponding to
the opposites of movement and repose, determine
the consciousness whence every moral impulse and

* Christ. Sitte, p. 39. The theories of the Atonevietit advocated
by Maurice and MacLeod Campbell are but the amplification of
this germinal thought ; although it is, perhaps, doubtful whether
the Scottish divine had any acquaintance with the writings of
Schleiermacher.

ETHICAL DOCTRINE, 26 1

action must emanate. In the conception of an
absolutely perfect existence, pleasure and pain can
find no place, but in the process of the earthly
Christian life they are clearly inevitable. Com-
munion with God, the constant aim of the religious
aspiration and endeavour, is never fully attained in
the temporal sphere ; it is at most an ideal im-
perfectly realized. The higher life-potencies
engage with the lower, but they are sorely handi-
capped by the fact that the lower have originally
had indisputed possession of all the springs and
impulses of our being. Not at once, then, can the
old order be destroyed and the new introduced.
" In the consciousness of the Christian, there is
always a sense of antagonism, always a residue of
the independence of the lower life-potency, a
longing of the flesh against the spirit, and the con-
sequent limitation which is felt as displeasure or
pain {unlusf). But with the rise of the feeling of
dissatisfaction, there also arises the effort to over-
come the independent activity of the inferior
power. This effort, proceeding from the very heart
of the higher life, since it is the feeling of the
limitation of this life that displeases, refuses to
be repressed or to pause until the lower life-
potency, while not destroyed — for in that case
the higher potency which can only exist in
combination with the lower would also be
destroyed — yet so becomes the organism of the
higher that the higher alone assumes the initiative.

262 SCHLEIERMACHER.

This sense of dissatisfaction with oneself impels to
that form of action by means of which the broken
relations between the higher and the lower powers
of life, the disturbed normal condition, can be
restored — a form of activity which may for con-
venience be designated restorative or purifying
action." On the other hand, the sense of pleasure
{lust) is awakened when the inferior principle not
only admits the claim of the superior, but willingly
acquiesces in it. The satisfaction arising from the
subordination of the lower nature to the higher
becomes in its turn the motive to that kind of
action which is known as propagative or expansive.
This activity, along with that determined by the
feeling of displeasure, constitutes the great class of
actions designated by Schleiermacher as realizing
or effective action. They are so called because they
refer to the influence of man upon man, and have
for their object the restoration and advancement
of the spiritual life.*

Realizing action, with its two forms of activity
resulting from the determinations of self-conscious-
ness as these are pleasant or painful, does not,
however, embrace the whole field of moral action.
Between the alternations of pleasure and pain, and
their consequent impulses and effects, there are
intervals of satisfaction, moments which may be
characterized as the indifference of the purifying

* Christl. Situ, pp. 44-45.

ETHICAL DOCTRINE. 263

and propagative activities. The state of inner rest,
created by these moments of repose — necessarily
relative, for, if absolute, it would be the complete
negation of the temporal life — differs from that
created by the emotion either of pleasure or of
pain in that it becomes the impulse to no really
determined course of action. It does not seek to
effect any change in our relation to the world, or
to institute any process in ourselves or in others.
It is simply the expression of an inward condition
of spirit. It has no further aim than of bringing
itself to manifestation, or of so fixing its existence
by an outward act that it can become cognisable
by others. Hence this form of action is called
manifestive, and its most general type is religious
worship taken in its widest sense.*

These three kinds of activity represent the entire
moral life in the process of realization. They are
the formulse under which all our actions can be
classified. Yet they are not to be thought of as if
they mutually excluded each other. As a matter
of fact they are always more or less present in
every experience of the Christian life. But as our
consciousness is sometimes predominantly deter-
mined towards realizing our outer calling as con-
querors of self and the world, and at other times
towards manifesting our inner state — the image of
God in us — the whole course of the Christian

* Christl. Sine, pp. 45-52.

264 SCHLEIERMACHER.

activity may be adequately represented as coming
within these lines. Schleiermacher, therefore,
adopts for Christian Ethics a threefold division
based on these determinations of self-conscious-
ness. We have pain and pleasure giving rise to
purifying and propagative activity, and we have
relative blessedness producing the manifestive
species of action. This may not seem so complete
or scientific a division as that made choice of in
the philosophical ethics. But from the Christian
view-point the philosophical principle of division
is inadmissible. The Kingdom of God no doubt
corresponds to the highest good ; yet with this
single point of coincidence the analogy ceases ; for
in Christian ethics virtue and duty have no inde-
pendent existence apart from the conception of
of the Church as the divine fellowship, or the
Kingdom of God. Schleiermacher had, then, to
reject this division on the ground that, both
systematically and practically, it was too narrow
to give expression to the wide and varied content
of Christian ethic* Schleiermacher's description
of this science within the new limits which he is
consequently forced to mark out for himself is
characterized by marvellous completeness and
architectonic skill. All that we can hope to do is
to give a bare outline of his method of exposition
without any detailed reference to the wealth of

■ Christl, Sitte^ pp. 77-96.

ETHICAL DOCTRINE. 265

ideas which he brings to the accomplishment of
the task.

I. Purifying or Propagative Activity.

The rationale of this activity is to be sought in
the fact that the supremacy of the Holy Spirit is
never absolutely dominant in the Church. There
is always in the whole and in the individual a
residuum of sin — an opposition of the flesh against
the spirit. The Christian community is not, like
its Founder, perfect in every movement of its life ;
for it does not, like Him, possess an unconquerable
control over the sensuous, an autocracy of the spirit
over the flesh. Sinfulness inheres in it — that sin-
fulness in which the sin of the individual has its
ground and existence. Still, if the Christian
Church is itself incomplete, its absolute perfection
is posited in the idea of Christ. All that He was,
all that was in Him, the Church must endeavour
to be and to possess. The religious consciousness
must strive to overcome the evil by which it is
hindered ; the united Christian fellowship must
seek to establish in its members that authority of
the Spirit which is the life and law of its being.
Hence the necessity of the purifying activity. It
is the indispensable condition of the inner life and
development of the Church.

This activity, by which the moral Christian con-
sciousness is ever resisting and minimising the

266 SCHLEIERMACHER.

power of the sensuous, is twofold. It is a common
activity and a personal activity — the one manifest-
ing itself in a universal, the other in a particular
way. The first corresponds to the action of the
Church as a unity, the second to the action of the
individual Church member. How are these two
related ?

In dealing with this question, Schleiermacher
discards all one-sided views. To regard the
impulse towards restoration as issuing solely
from the Church and its clerical representatives
— the Roman Catholic notion — is not only really
and historically false, but it presents an idea
of the Church that is incomplete and unnatural.
Equally inadmissible is it when the individual is
regarded as the source whence alone the restorative
activity proceeds. This view goes to the other
extreme, only its tendency is to break the universal
unity of the Church, and to deorganize instead of
organizing the whole. If we would, therefore,
obtain a full and impartial conception of the
matter, we must acknowledge that there is a mutual
influence — an influence of the Church upon the
individual, and of the individual upon the Church.

The influence of the Church is described in the
following manner. Individual Christians are the
product of the common life, the life of the religious
community. They exist by means of it, and,
where necessary, they are reformed by it. If they
come short of the universal standard, the self-con-

ETHICAL DOCTRINE. 267

sciousness of the entire community can so deter-
mine their self-consciousness that it can become an
elevating and purifying impulse. There is a trans-
mission, a passing over, of the universal spirit into
the particular — a process which may be construed
as an influence of the whole on the individual.
Only this influence must not be viewed in the light
of a constraining power or necessity : it must
always be willed by the individual himself. Indeed,
the will of the individual is nothing else than his
living susceptibility for receiving the influence of
the whole — a susceptibility grounded in the inner-
most unity of his life. Each Christian is a separ-
ate individuality as well as a member of the
Church, and if the Church is to move him it can
only be through the determination of his own self-
consciousness. If the whole tries to act restora-
tively upon him under any other formula — conse-
quently without this individualizing of the general
type — it follows a course which cannot morally be
justified.*

When the Church is thus in a properly organized
condition, it acts upon its constituent members so
as to bring them up to the typical form of the
Christian life. There is, however, a possibility
that the Church itself may not attain to this
standard — that it may come short of the true
spiritual ideal. In that case, if it is to be raised to

* Christl. Sitte, pp. 11 7- 120.

268 SCHLEIERMACHER.

its proper life and function, the work of restora-
tion must initiate with individual members. The
Spirit is not present equally in each and all, and
in dark periods of the Church's history — notably
when it lacks organization or has the form but not
the substance — there can be a consciousness of the
individual that is in advance of the whole. When
this takes place individual consciousness becomes
the impulse to a general reformation. There is an
activity of the individual directed towards the
community, an effort of the one to purify the
many.

This effort — and the fact is important — must
not, indeed, be regarded as possessing a distinctly
individual tendency. It is only as the individual
acts in the capacity of organ, or representative of
the whole, onlj' as he moves in the line of the type
of life and activity originated by Christ, that his
influence becomes right and moral. The universal
element must always prevail; and if the individual
is present, it is present only as a minimum : only
as the means, never as the end of the process.
Particular personal activity can therefore never
have as its object the producing of division or
schism. Its aim is not revolutionary but reform-
ative, not separative but supplementary. When it
ceases to be this ; when it destroys the continuity
or unity of the Church ; it loses its ethical char-
acter. All genuine reformations, like that of
Luther, have had a far other than a schismatic

ETHICAL DOCTRINE. 269

intention. The great Reformer did not desire
separation from the Church ; he sought to reform
it from within in virtue of the eternal principle
upon which it was founded. The separation, the
split, which ultimately did come, was not his act,
but the act of the Church when it repudiated him
and the common feeling to which he gave
expression.*

These two forms of contrasted activity find their
outgo in what Schleiermacher entitles Church
Discipline and Church Reform — the one having
the individual for its object, the other the
community.

Church Discipline is necessary in the develop-
ment of the Christian life, because the separate
moral calling of each is naturally one-sided, and
fails to form a complete ethical whole. The
tendency of this discipline is therefore extensive
as well as intensive, propagative not less than
purifying. On this account what is merely
personal or individual is excluded, as being out-
side, or antagonistic to, the fulfilment of the moral
calling. In this category are included physical
privations and scourgings, which weaken the
bodily organism and uufit it for its real functions ;
fasting which, as a discipline, has no moral worth,
and which, if it be regarded as the expression of
an inward condition of soul — such as pain or

' Christl. sate, pp. 120-139.

270 SCHLEIERMACHER.

sorrow — belongs to another sphere of activity
altogether : the manifestive sphere ; and formal
prayer which, although in one sense at the root of
all religious impulse, is distinctly personal and
manifestive in its character. Restorative action
must be positive in its character ; and it can be
this in either of two ways. It can so influence
the flesh that it subordinates itself in willing
obedience to the spirit, or it can so strengthen the
power of the spirit that it can overcome the flesh.
Either form can only be produced by the con-
currence of the self-activity of the individual with
the activity of the whole. The individual cannot
of himself correct the defects of his character or
supplement its onesidedness ; he needs to be
educated and strengthened by the community of
which he is a part. His capacity for exertion and
self-denial must be developed by training — by
that free educative gymnastic which is grounded
in brotherly love, and of which the principle is
that each cares for all. This is especially the
case with reference to those duties which we owe
to the poor and the sick. Here personal selfish-
ness must give place to the wider spirit of the
whole, and the narrow, self-centred life must find
its completion in the great common life. So lilce^
wise in the other method of purifying — that acting
upon the spirit — the individual is dependent on
the Church. He cannot be conceived as moulding
his own spirit, seeing that that is already the

ETHICAL DOCTRINE. 27 I

highest agent in him. If his spirit is then to be
moved and elevated at all, this must be effected
by means of the Divine Spirit which has been
imparted by Christ not to the individual as such,
but to the entire religious community. Conse-
quently, it is as the individual assimilates the
Spirit and the life of the whole that he can be
quickened and elevated. We have an illustration
of this in religious culture. Here the Church
expresses itself in an organic manner, and, by
reason of its efforts, exerts a stimulating influence
on all its individual members.*

If, however, the whole exercises a purifying
effect on the individual, not less is it true that the
individual exercises a kindred effect on the whole.
Church Reform is as necessary as Church Disci-
pline. This necessity is created by the character
and limitation of the corporate Christian life. It
is a life in development — a life ever reaching
towards the ideal in Christ. But just because it is
so, it is apt to be hindered or arrested in its
growth. If it has its seasons of special progress,
it has also its times of general stagnation, or of
backward movement. Now, whenever the life of
the Church falls below the normal condition, and
the original organization is more or less lost, the
Church must be called back to its true standing
by means of the individual. This takes place

* Chrisll. Situ, 140-177.

272 SCHLEIERMACHER.

when the individual is convinced by Scripture, and
by an intelligent understanding of the historical
elements of Christianity, that the prevailing senti-
ment and practice are not consistent with the
universal Christian principle. Wherever this con-
viction is strong, it causes the subject of it to feel
that he can no longer act as a representative of
the whole. But this conviction does not drive him
out of the Church, neither does it lead him to
break up its original unity. Instead of pursuing
either course — both of which are morally wrong —
the true reformer aims at restoring the religious
community to its former organization. By acting
on the general conscience, and by opposing in the
most public manner the common retrogression, he
endeavours to purify the whole, or, what is the
same thing, to restore the organization of the
earlier and better state. When this is accom-
plished, the restorative action of the individual
ceases, and the action of the whole becomes once
more a puri*"ying influence exercising itself on the
individual.

All genuine reformative effort must have a uni-
versal tendency. Where the purely personal
element manifests itself, division and confusion
have always been the inevitable result. This is
notably the case in those reforms which have been
the growth of spiritual pride and fanatical absolu-
tism, and which have proved greater evils than the
original defects which they sought to remedy.

ETHICAL DOCTRINE. 2/3

Equally doomed to failure are also those modern
ideas of reform that are the outcome, not of the
eternal principles already existent in the Church,
but of one-sided, egoistic, and doctrinal assump-
tions. To this class must be referred all attempts
at a re-union of the separate Protestant Churches
on the basis of a new Evangelical Confession. It
is not by a mechanical harmony of symbolical
books, that such a consummation, however devoutly
to be desired, can be attained. If ever a union of
the Churches is attained, it can only be on the
ground of a far deeper unity than mere dead
uniformity of view : even union on the ground of
the organic life and the religious ethical feeling
that are present in all the different parts of our
divided Protestantism. " Our Church is the
Father's great house, in which there are many
mansions. As such we will maintain it, and not
again go back to the Romish stand-point." Better
even a divided Church, than a Church united as is
the sandheap without organic coherence and the
vital touch of all its parts.*

Under the general heading of purifying activity,
Schleiermacher has a long section f on domestic
and civil government, both of which, although not
the direct creation of the Church, has a close bear-
ing upon the Church life and character.

The family is the chief centre where the moral

* Christl. Situ, pp. 178-216. f Ibid., pp. 217-290.

18

274 SCHLEIERMACHER.

education and discipline of the child must begin.
A process similar to what takes place in the
Church, when the whole acts on the individual,
takes place in each Christian household. As in
the one there is a strengthening of the Divine
Spirit and a weakening of the sensual nature, so
also there is in the other. With the awakening of
conscience in the child, the process of training
should originate. By family worship, by religious
culture, and by the personal influence of the
parents, the spiritual capacities of the child should
be so educated that it becomes easy for them to
obtain supremacy over the lower or material
nature. At the same time, the lower nature must
be trained to subordinate itself to the higher by
means of free exercise and practice in the art of
self-government. In the use of both these methods
all recourse to force must be discarded. The first
duty of the child is willing and unconditional
obedience ; and this ought to be secured without
discussing the moral ground of the action. To
reason with the young before the Christian type
of spirit is fully developed is to establish in them,
at the merely infantile stage, the independence of
the spiritual life. Equally to be avoided in family
discipline is the system of rewards and punish-
ments. These excite hope or fear — strong moral
motives, certainly — but in this case they have no
ethical worth, seeing the purifying action of the
child must spring from the pure joy of self-

ETHICAL DOCTRINE. 275

conquest, and not from any outside or alien
stimulus.

In the State, as in the family, there is likewise a
peculiar purifying activity. This activity may be
described according to the different ways in which
it manifests itself

(i.) There is an inner activity of the State
which, after the analogy of ecclesiastical discipline
and reform, assumes a twofold character. When
the individual subject disobeys the law, obedience
must be enforced by the act of the whole. This
act of the whole manifests itself as the right to
punish — a right which has to be exercised if the
divine institution of authority is to be maintained.
But in a Christian State punishment should always
be educative and restorative, never revengeful or
destructive. Capital punishment ought, therefore,
to be abolished. It is a survival of pagan times,
and is as un-Christian as it is opposed to the ends
of civil government. If, on the other hand, the
State, or civil community itself, should be in a
retrograde condition, reform, as in the Church,
must emanate from the individual. The end here
is not revolution, but reform.

(2.) In addition to this double inner activity,
there is a double outer activity. One State can
exert a purifying influence on another ; for States
stand related to each other as moral individuals.
Each has got its own rights, and the rights of all
find expression in the common notion of inter-

2/6 SCHLEIERMACHER.

national law. Now, when the normal relations
existing between States are disturbed or destroyed,
they must be restored. If peaceful efforts fail,
then physical force, or war, becomes a necessity.
Again, it is the duty of Christian States to civilize
the savage races that possess no true civil organiza-
tion, and to bring them under a system of law and
government. Yet in the exercise of this restor-
ative function they are prohibited from using
violence and oppression. " Christianity knows
nothing of a right to civilize uncivilized races by
means of force. It insists upon the avoidance of
everything by which the Christian name might be
blasphemed among the nations (i Tim. vi. i ;
Tit. ii. 5-8) ; and by nothing has it been more
blasphemed than by oppression. We rightly wonder
how it is that Christians live in intercourse for cen-
turies wilh pagan peoples without exciting in them
any friendly disposition towards Christianity. But
the reason of this is to be sought for, not so much
in the circumstance that Christian people have no
interest in Christianity, as in the fact that Christi-
anity has made itself hated and contemptible
through its deeds of violence. Were it not for
this, those plastic races with whom it came in con-
tact fifteen centuries ago would have long since been
Christianized. That they are now only partially
so is a standing disgrace to the Christian name." *

* Christl. Silte, pp. 289-290.

ETHICAL DOCTRINE. 277,

2. Expansive Activity.

Expansive activity is the positive side of the
reah'zing process. Its universal type is the re-
demptive work of Christ viewed in its living and
aggressive influence on the human race. It differs
from restorative activity in that it springs from the
feeling of pleasure consequent on the removal of
the antagonism between the flesh and the spirit.
It differs from the manifestive activity by being
transitive in character : it is action passing from
one human subject to another. The joy that is
experienced by the Christian when he is helpful in
leading a fellow-mortal to accord a willing recep-
tion to the Divine Spirit becomes in him a fresh
impulse towards realizing in other souls the same
spiritual condition. Hence the existence of reli-
gious education and the dissemination of truth.

But expansive activity, though it has as its type
the positive activity of Christ, operates in us in a
sense other than it operated in Him. In Him the
Holy Spirit — the being of God — acted personally
and directly on those whom He sought to bring
under the supremacy of righteousness. In our
case we cannot so act. The spirit, the i/oi/?, in us
is a lower potency, of which the -KvaJixa of Christ,
the divine principle in Christianity, is the highest and
most perfect development. In the universal human
sense the Spirit may therefore be said to have been
always in the world as a longing, an aspiration of

2/8 SCHLEIERMACHER.

man's heart, but never as the highest or absolute
potency. It was with the advent of Christ that
this human spirit, that this vov^, so long a desire
awaiting realization, first appeared as a mighty
agent, a supernatural power, for the restoration and
perfection of humanity. What was in us as a germ
that could never quicken into the divine life be-
came in Him the Spirit and the being of the living
God. And it is only as we are one with Christ and
His Church that we can act through the power of
this Divine Spirit and that it can operate in us.

The Spirit of Christ, as the essential agent in the
expansive process, unites itself to us by means of
our entire spiritual organism (the vovi). When it
combines directly with this spiritual organism, it
produces in us that bias of the will known as dzs-
position ; when it joins itself indirectly, through
the vovq, to the organism of the various functions
of our sentient nature (the \|/yyj;), it generates that
capacity which may be called, in contradistinction
to disposition, talent, or faculty. The first repre-
sents a more inward view of the union of the
higher principle with our nature, the second a more
outward aspect of the same union. Disposition is
the inner source of virtuous action, talent is the
ability to express in external actions this moral
inclination. The Biblical conceptifin of irvev/j.a
and y^aoLo-fxa (i Cor. xii. 4), corresponds to this
twofold aspect of the Spirit's indwelling in the
natural man. The Christian disposition is one

ETHICAL DOCTRINE. 279

and indivisible, the Christian talent is various ; but
neither can exist without the other. There is no
disposition without talent, and no talent, in the
true sense of the word, without disposition.

This contrast between the inner and outer rela-
tion of the Spirit furnishes Schleiermacher with a
principle which enables him to draw a distinction
between the expansive activity of the Church and
the expansive activity of the State. The former
is that activity which has for its object the cultivat-
ing of the religious disposition and which utilizes
talent only as it furthers this aim ; the latter
occupies itself with the development of the entire
outer process of culture, as represented by talent
and nature, and only recognises the cultivation of
disposition in as far as it promotes this general
purpose. Both these forms of activity, the religious
not less than the civil, have, as their presupposilion
and basis, the natural and propogative extension
of the race through the communion of the sexes.
Hence Schleiermacher prefaces his general treat-
ment of ecclesiastical and political expansive oper-
ations by an interesting disquisition on the ethics
of marriage, with special reference to the Christian
principle.

The expansive activity in the Church has for its
starting-point the personality of Christ, and for its
end the perfecting in Him of the whole human
race. As an historical process this activity has
both an extensive and intensive direction.

28o SCHLEIERMACHER.

Extensively the efforts of the Church are as
wide as humanity, for their one constant aim is to
bring all men under the dominion of Christ.
Where the Christian disposition does not exist, the
Church must create and foster it. This it can do
in two ways : either by devoting itself to the reli-
gious education of those within its immediate pale
and with whom it comes into continuous contact,
or by the establishment in heathen lands of Chris-
tian missions. The first is the personal duty of
every believer, the other can only become so when
we feel that we have a special call to take a per-
sonal share in such work. The whole extensive
process is, therefore, an expression of the degree of
perfection which the Church has already attained,
or of the measure in which it has become the pos-
sessor of the Divine Spirit.*

The intensive form of expansive activity within
the Church may be regarded as an action of the
Church upon itself. It is constantly deepening
and bringing to a more perfect stage the inner life
of its members. It is a school — an institution in
the theoretical sense — for the strengthening of the
activities of the will, and the capacities of the
intellect. It maintains, in the midst of continuous
advancement, a common standard of Christian
morals, a common standard of Christian thought
and speech. Both in conduct and in doctrine it

* Christl. Sitte, pp. 373-382.

ETHICAL DOCTRINE. 28 1

never ceases intensively to perfect that disposition
which the Spirit is striving in every age to produce
in the life of the vast religious organism.*

Within the sphere of the State expansive
activity is primarily directed towards the develop-
ing and organizing of the powers of men that they
may overcome nature, and bring it under the
influence of mind. In accomplishing this task the
State is primarily guided not by the Holy Spirit,
the ruling principle of the Church — for the State
as a separate institution exists prior to the Church
— but by the universal principle of reason. Its act
is the act of all communities bound by the ties of
race and country, and it rests on the relations of
division of labour, property and commerce, posses-
sion and exchange, as regulated by the natural
laws of right and morality.

The only limit to this process of culture, by
which a definite community of men endeavour to
develop their inner powers, and the resources of
nature, is that it be undertaken in the interest
of the human spirit. There may be a culture
of nature which, by its severity, is destructive of
man's physical and psychical powers. In such a
case man ceases to be a free determining agent,
and becomes a slave, a piece of mechanism, wha^
Aristotle calls " a living organ." Again there may
be a theoretical culture of talent, apart altogether

* Christl. Sitle, pp. 383-397.

282 SCHLEIERMACHER.

from its practical use and result. In this case the
opposite extreme is reached, and man develops
into an unproductive capacity, a mere intellectual
function. The true corrective of both these
abnormal forms is Art, taken in the widest sense
as the equilibrium of the mechanical and specula-
tive elements.

The Church, much as it differs in aim and prin-
ciple from the State, is nevertheless related to it in
the closest manner. It cannot regard the State as
a necessary evil ; and, as there is no political form
that is entirely antagonistic to Christianity, it has
never souglit the overthrow of either an absolute
monarchy or an absolute democracy — the two
types under which every form of government can
be classified. The Church recognises civil govern-
ment as an institution ordained by God ; it
acknowledges civil virtue {justitia civilis), and it
blesses all efforts that have as their purpose the
conquering of nature and the enlargement of
human knowledge. There is, in short, no real dis-
harmony between organized life in God and organ-
ized life in the world, between the community of
Christ and the community of the people. It is in
form, not in matter they differ. By means of the
one, human reason becomes more and more the
instrument of the divine Spirit ; the action of the
other secures that all nature becomes ever increas-
inglysubservient to man. The activityof the Church
strives to raise men into fellowship with God ; the

ETHICAL DOCTRINE. 283

Christian State, on the contrary, takes men thus
raised, and endeavours so to act through them
that the whole sphere of nature may be brought
under the sway of the one divine human Spirit.*

3. Mamfestive Activity.

This form of activity arises from the feeling of
blessedness resulting from the supremacy of the
spirit over the flesh. It is the consummation of
the process instituted by the purifying and expan-
sive activities. Its aim is to give expression to
what is the essential element in the Christian dis-
position — the consciousness of superiority to the
sensuous, material life. It does not effect any
change in tiie moral condition of the individual or
of the community ; it is simply the externalization
of the inner state that has been created by the
realizing forms of action. Such an externalization
would be unnecessary if man existed in isolation
and for himself, but the idea of the community,
with which he is habitually associated in his entire
moral vocation, renders it imperative. Manifestive
action cannot exist without communion witii others,
and self-manifestation is nothing but the constant
realization of our beings in relation to the whole.
The principle of this manifestation is love — in the
strictly religious sense, brotherly love, and, in the
wider and more intellectual sense, universal human

* Clitistl, Siltc, pp. 440-501.

284 SCHLEIERMACHER.

love. Brotherly love forms the basis of the inner
religious community, or the Church, all the mem-
bers of which are represented — in opposition to
the Roman Catholic view — as being spiritually
equal in relation to Christ and to the Spirit,
although not equal in their appropriation and
manifestation of the Christian life. Universal
human love, the other unifying principle, is the
basis of the great outer social sphere which has an
existence prior to and relatively independent of
the Church.*

Within the Christian Church manifestive activity
assumes the general form of divine worship which
is defined as the sum total of all those actions, in
virtue of which we declare by the help of the Holy
Spirit that we are the organs of God. Whether as
private or public worship — and, indeed, the two
must be so united as to supplement and perfect
each other — it has for its object the externalization
of the inner consciousness of blessedness arising
from the subjection of tiie flesh to the spirit. If it
possesses a realizing tendency at all, it does so
only indirectly in the sense that all the three forms
of Christian ethical activity imply each other. The
channels through which the self-manifestation of
the inner life is made, are not new creations of the
Spirit : they are the already existing products of
the universal reason, such as speech, song, action,

* Christl. Situ, pp. 502-525.

ETHICAL DOCTRINE. 285

and tone. Divine worship is thus, in the narrower
sense, manifestive action taking place within the
sphere of art — art being taken in its widest signifi-
cation. But it has another and a more compre-
hensive meaning as embracing the entire moral
life. It is the representation of the supremacy of
the spirit over the flesh, as manifested in the
virtues of chastity, patience, endurance, and
humility. In this more extended sense, divine
worship is " that kind of action which appears to
us as operative in the act of its becoming and as
manifestive only in its completed form. It, there-
fore, implies the whole process of the culture of
nature : it is manifestive action taking place within
the sphere of the active life.*

In the outer social sphere — that general com-
munion of men which is older than the Church and
relatively independent of it — the manifestive form
of action also plays an important part. The social
life, isolated from the Christian communion,
awakens in man a consciousness of his higher
nature, and this consciousness finds expression in
actions that are not so much operative as mani-
festive in character. In connection with the social
life proper, we have the enjoyment of eating and
drinking, and the consequent speech or exchange
of thought always combined with this exercise.
The satisfaction of man's animal wants becomes

* Christl. Silte, p. 535 ; vide also pp. 537-619.

286 SCHLEIERMACHER.

spiritualized through the act of fellowship, and ex-
presses itself accordingly. Then, in a more general
sense, we have those actions of the universal human
intercourse that are purely self-manifestive. To
this class belong art and play — the one more fixed,
the other more fleeting in form. Art is the condi-
tion of the natural process of culture by which all
human capacities are brought to their highest per-
fection. So it is in the vocal, the plastic, and the
mimetic arts. Purity, harmony, seemliness, are
the requisites of all true art. Play is different
from art in that the activity is here the result,
whereas in art the activity and the result are
different. Play has always formed an element in
the development of moral life. The ancient con-
tests — physical, musical, and poetical — were essen-
tial factors in the formation of the national exist-
ence. The plays of modern times are specially
notable, because of the element of chance tliat
enters into them. Play, to have any moral worth,
must not only be pure and chaste, but must help
to develop the physical or intellectual side of our
nature. Mere games of chance, or plays engaged
in for the sake of gain, lose their ethical character.
Even card-playing, though it cannot be said to be
immoral in all its forms, produces a bad and empty
kind of fellowship, and in the case of some it assumes
the unhealthy symptoms of a chronic disease.*

* Christl. Stile, pp. 620-706.

EPILOGUE.

Kant tells us that it was David Hume's scepticism
with regard to causality that " first awakened him
out of his dogmatic slumber, and gave a different
direction to his investigations in the field of specul-
ative philosophy." The great sceptic reasoned
that what is known as the principle of causality is
a purely subjective notion, existing in the mind as
the result of association and habit. We cannot
say that it has anything really corresponding to it
in the objects or phenomena of nature ; for all
that we can know is the simple sequence of events,
or that things happen. We have no warrant, then,
for saying that causality has any objective validity,
or that there is any necessary connection of events
with each other. To this argument, striking at the
foundation of all real knowledge, Kant replied by
declaring that it is quite true that the principle of
causality is subjective and not objective ; for it
derives its warrant and certainty not from the
momentary facts of experience but from the
essential laws and forms of reason. All certainty
and validity are from within, not from without ; and
it is just because this is so that causality becomes
a necessary and universal principle.

287

288 SCHLEIERMACHER.

This is how Kant met Hume, and inaugurated a
new era in philosophy. But, by admitting that we
can only have certainty as to the forms of mind —
that we only know appearances and not things as
they are — he but half-closed the door against
scepticsm. What about the forms of being ? If
we cannot know objects, if we have not at least as
good a guarantee for their existence and reality as
we have for the facts of intellect, we are still in the
region of uncertainty and doubt. Especially is
this so when we remember that, on Kant's own
showing, there can be no real movement of
thought — no conscious experience — until the forms
of thought receive their content from that very
world of being concerning which, as he tells us, we
can know nothing, and whose existence we must
consequently predicate as a hypothetical assump-
tion. The forms of thought, with their cognition
of appearances, is thus clearly too one-sided and
narrow a basis on which to rear a system of critical
philosophy.

It was this scepticism of Kant as to being — the
content of all experience — that made Schleier-
macher enter into the field of speculative philos-
ophy. He was the first to see that the principles
of Kant, if carried to their logical issues, were
destructive of all knowledge. Reason and will are
but two sides of one intellectual process, and, apart
from their actual correspondence and identity with
being, they can, neither singly nor taken together,

EPILOGUE. 289

explain the order and certainty of the world and
its relations to us. They cannot justify the exist-
ence of concepts and judgments ; they cannot
account for the development of the social and
moral, the aesthetic and religious feelings. It is
only when we consider all the manifestations of
reason as forming a single line of evolution, and
when we assign to nature a reality and validity as
necessary and as knowable as the validity and
reality we assign to spirit, that we can hope to
attain either light or certainty. The world of
finite things is the sphere in which our knowledge
moves. It is in nature, and through nature, that
our thought arises and is developed. The organic
and the intellectual, the material and the formal,
are parts of one whole. They are the primaries
of all knowledge, and we know the one as we know
the other. The aristocratic view of intellect, as if
it .stood, in splendid isolation, high above the
common plane of the earthly, and could as easily
evolve from its own inner consciousness the explan-
ation of a world as a world itself, is nothing but
an ancient dream dreamed over again by some
of the more idealistic of modern philosophers.
What Schleiermacher sought was the art of know-
ledge — not " knowledge of knowledge," or the
absolute philosophy — and in this search he was
content to begin at the very lowest stage in the
construction of conscious experience. His capital,
to start with, consisted of organic activity, coming
19

2gO SCHLEIERMACHER.

from outer being and representing the forms of the
real ; and intellectual activity, dwelling within and
representing the forms of inner being. With these
he tried to work out a scheme of knowledge, and
a view of life and the world.

This, then, being Schleiermacher's method of
studying the facts of consciousness, as they come
into manifestation in and through the correlated
spheres of inner and outer, we may, in closing,
briefly accentuate some of his more important
conclusions regarding the world, and man, and
God.

The world is the sum of finite things, the totality
of being as unity and plurality. It is the vast
articulate organism of Nature and Spirit — the true
identity of all contrasts and aspects of life and
becoming. Every part of it is bound together by
influences that act and react on each other. The
universal comes to manifestation in the particular,
and the particular finds its fulfilment in the
universal. Activity, unceasing, is at the base of
all its movements — the activity of law and har-
monious relation. Each living thing, each action,
is the identity of force and appearance. In all the
world's phenomena of real and ideal, material and
spiritual, is an element of force which, from lower
to higher, from higher to lower, is ever taking oa
distinct shapes, reproducing itself in endless
varieties, while it ever remains itself, in the midst
of all flux and change, constant and unchanged.

EPILOGUE. 291

As " motion and oscillation, attraction and re-
pulsion, combination and separation, growth and
decay," this force enters into the evolution of all
finite existence — working and weaving the diversi-
fied fabric which we know as the world of ex-
perience. Schleiermacher designates these forces
" the substantial forms," the fixed points in being
which correspond to "the being of ideas," the fixed
points, or forms, of thought. They are so called
because each force remains constant in its distinct
method of action, or manner of coming into
manifestation. Its appearances, or effects are,
however, subject to change ; so that what is an
appearance may itself become a force, which also
acts according to its nature, and so on throughout
the entire series. For example, man is a living
unity of forces. Each function, or so called
capacity, of his nature is a force, and its individual
actions are appearances. But man, regarded as a
member of the race, is an appearance of which the
race is the force. Again, the race, viewed as
human nature, is, in its turn, an appearance of the
still higher energy known as the force of spiritual
life. And so of every other sphere of existence
and activity in the world. At no single, indi-
vidual stage is there a finally completed system
of causality. Only in appearance can anything
boast of separate existence. Each is related to a
higher, until at last in the ascending scale, we
reach the highest force of all, which is the ground

292 SCHLEIERMACHER.

of all appearances. This highest unity of force is
what Spinoza meant by God, just as it is the
Unknowable of Agnostics, like Herbert Spencer.
In the thought of Schleiermacher this force, while
it is of God, does not correspond to God. The
notion of the highest force does not transcend the
sphere of the contrasted, since " every force is
measured by the totality of its appearance, and is,
therefore, necessarily of a definite or determined
extent." Besides, " the highest force only so con-
ditions all that it becomes itself conditioned by
all." The highest force taken along with its
inseparable appearance, or the system of the
reciprocal action of things upon each other, can
give us only " the idea of the world — the system of
forces, the abiding forms of being, as identical
with the system of cause and effect." This, it is
true, is the limit of our knowledge — the terminus
ad quern, but it is not the terminus a quo, the
"whence" of our knowledge. The real Absolute
can never be identical with the totality of knowing
and being, since it is the transcendent ground of
all knowing and being, the true Unconditioned
conditioning all things.

What kind of force is this that is at the base of
all movement in the world, and that is ever ex-
pressing itself in such countless forms? We may
call it the living force of reason immanent in
nature — the universal, world-forming nous. Accord-
ing to Schleiermacher, reason is originally present

EPILOGUE. 293

in things not less than in us, in the material not
less than in the spiritual. " There is a process of
ethic ( Versittlichung) in the whole earthly nature,
in time and space, which is never given as the work
of human reason." "Pure dynamical or mechanical
force is only to be thought of as existing before the
world, just as pure matter and pure spirit can only
be conceived as outside the world, which is the
same as saying that they exist nowhere. The
perfect unity of finite being, as the mutual in-
dwelling of nature and reason in an all-embracing
organism, is the world." * The free products of
nature, as in crystallization and the cleavage and
peaks of mountain ranges, represent types akin to
those predetermined forms of the human spirit which
find expression in architecture. In vegetable and
animal life there is also an attempt after the ideal
form. " In this attempt we find already a tendency,
which lies hidden in all earthly bodies, to arrive at
consciousness in the sphere of the earthly; although
it is in the animal sphere alone that this form is
most distinctly developed." The same presence of
reason is also manifested in the sub-human region
{Unterhalb des Menscheri) in the efforts after a kind
of ethical code, as is witnessed in the case of those
animals that live in communities.

" It is, however, in man alone that we find con-
sciousness coming into distinct emergence. He is

* Entwurf einis Systems der Sittenlehre, pp. 61 and 31.

294 SCHLEIERMACHER.

the crown of the ascending series of the pro-
ductions of the earth ; in him is the life of the
earth perfected. And he, on his part, when con-
sciousness appears in hinn, develops once more, in
the form of consciousness, the being of the earth ;
and this is the cycle of his life and existence." *
Yet, though man is a product of the cosmic life,
being, before the first distinct act of consciousness,
immediately one with all existence, we are not to
suppose that his spirit, his intellectual activity, is a
mere product of the material. What the earth
does for him is to determine the disposition of
consciousness originally in him, and adequate to
what the earth develops. Otherwise man would
not be for this world, and its life would not perfect
itself in him. As appearance he is of the earth,
but as spirit and consciousness he is of the spirit.
The outer force and the inner, the material and the
spiritual exist for each other. It is the nature of
being that it determines spirit, it is the nature of
spirit that it thinks being as it really is. In our
bodily organization we have a sense that is open to
the manifoldne.ss of the world and its appearances.
This is the stuff of which thought is made. But
in addition to the sense that is turned outwards we
have a sense that is opened to the inner world, to

* Aisthetik, pp. 105-106. The whole of the remarkable dis-
cussion on man's place in nature, Aisiketik, pp. ioi-ii6, is also
well worth consulting.

EPILOGUE. 29s

reason as the place of concepts. This is the form
of thought, the tendency of reason to determine and
discriminate the vague and indeterminate material
of thought conveyed by the outer sense. It is
only when the two are present, in active combina-
tion, the one conditioning the other, that there is
the genesis of real thought. The one gives par-
ticular images, the other universal images. The
all-dominating influence of the one is met by "the
inner agility we call spirit or intellect," and is
transformed irom non-thinking being to thinking
being. And, thus, through the tendency of thought
and fancy, " the highest and most original factor
in man," the process seems at last to be reversed,
and we produce the world instead of the world
producing us, as it appeared to do at the start.
This is the truth in idealism, just as the other is
the truth in materialism. It is only, however, as
we view the two in living interaction — the material
acting upon the formal and the formal acting upon
the material — that we have true knowledge, and
the real being of man, as the representing and
manifesting unity, the active, determining, and
regulating principle in the world.

On the moral side, too, Schleiermacher regarded
man as a part of the world, finding his life and life
determinations there. Nevertheless, though one
with the vast whole, he is more than a mere
sequence, or point of transition, in the complex
movement of cause and effect. He is a conscious

296 SCHLEIERMACHER.

individual, a representative moment in the whole.
He is acted on by the world, but he can act upon
the world. His real existence is within, not with-
out. Individuality is a fact of freedom, of will.
Each human being has a share in the universal
reason, which is the same and identical for all ;
but each has also an essential existence of his own
which he must develop in his own way in relation
to the undivided humanity of which he is a part.
The eternal self, freed from all that is accidental
and empirical, is not a vague and distinctionless
will, a single colourless conscience : it is an indi-
vidual and ever persisting form of humanity which,
as such, has an eternal significance in the universal
life of the world. Professor Dilthey suggests that
Schleiermacher was led to the development of this
great " creative thought " through the influence of
Fichte. At the same time he shows how widely
the view of Schleiermacher differed from that of
Fichte. For Fichte, as for Spinoza, " individu-
alism," in all its forms, was a simple limitation of
the Absolute.* Schleiermacher did not regard
individuality as a determination or limitation of
the Infinite, but as a product and representation of
the Infinite. Man, as the self-conscious unity of
being, both in its conceptual and its ethical side,
or as world-order and law, is the image and
expression of God. On the other hand, without

* Leben SchUiermachers, von Welhelm Dilthey, p. 342.

EPILOGUE. 297

this consciousness of his life-unity in the separation
of its functions, man would sink to the level of the
brutes.

As an ethical being, man develops his will in
the common " service of humanity." This service
is twofold: firstly, the conquering and rationalizing
of nature, as in agriculture, mechanics, and the
like ; and, secondly, in developing himself, and the
universal will, in the spheres of the family, society,
and the State, and in artistic and scientific tasks.
This ideal is, therefore, absolutely distinct from the
egoism of personal culture, since it directs the will
towards a highest good which embraces the whole
world of humanity.

Schleiermacher's view as to man's future destiny
may be briefly referred to, as it has occasionally
been misrepresented. Martineau, in his Study of
Religion, Vol. ii., pp. 339-34S, commenting on the
famous passage in the Reden, agrees with Professor
Pfleiderer in thinking that Schleiermacher rejects
the doctrine of a personal existence after death.
In defence of this view, he further quotes from
Schleiermacher's well-known letter to Henriette
von Willich. He then goes on to show that
Schleiermacher's view is untenable — that " the
pantheistic disparagement of personal life, though
very ill-defined, seems to depend upon two pre-
conceptions, widely different in character, one
moral, the other mathematical," and so on. Had
Martineau only been acquainted with the first

298 SCHLEIERMACHER.

edition of the Reden, there might be some excuse
for his polemic ; but as it is, he quotes from the
fourth edition of the Reden, that of 183 1, to which
Schleiermacher added a " note," in which he
explained the meaning of the original passage, and
sought to remove the misconceptions that had been
formed regarding it. In that "note" he declares
that what he spoke disparagingly of in the Reden
were the impure and selfish notions currently held
regarding immortality, not immortality itself. The
form of a doctrine may be narrow and misleading,
while the fact it represents may be eternal. He
further says that, as a Christian, he maintained the
reality of immortality, and that, as he gave expres-
sion to his view of the doctrine in the Glaubens-
lehre, both passages must be taken together, the
one as supplementary of the other. To this
" note," though it must have been before him at the
time of writing, Martineau makes no reference,
neither does he mention the Glaubenslehre ; and
the impression he thus leaves on the mind of the
reader is one that is as painfully unfavourable to
the memory of Schleiermacher's great name as it
is, in fact, incorrect as a representation of his view
of the immortal life. It may well have been that,
in the early days as in the later years, Schleier-
macher found no philosophical argument for the
existence of a future state that fully commended
itself to his intellect ; yet there is proof that he
held, some years before he wrote the Reden, the

EPILOGUE. 299

same view of life and immortality in Christ to
which he gave expression in the Glaiibenslehre
thirty-one years after. In a sermon, written about
1790, he says — " Christ is risen not only to better
us, but also as the first-fruits of those that follow
Him, the type of His true friends. He is only
gone to prepare a place for us among His own,
and it is His will that in the Eternal His servants
shall be where He is. What reason can only hope,
but cannot know : that He has declared ; and after
His own glorious awakening there can never again
be any doubt upon the point" * This was his hope
of immortality when he was twenty-two years of
age ; this is the hope expressed in the Glaubens-
lehre, the ripest product of his thought and
belief; and this is the hope in which, at last, he
commended his spirit to God.

Even in religion Schleiermacher is true to both
sides of the contrast from which he set out.
Religion is natural as well as supernatural. It is
only through knowledge of ourselves and of the
world that we can have any knowledge of God.
The idea that we can think the Being of all
beings, as if He were a mere thing, existing out-
side the world, that could mirror itself in mind, is
one of those peculiar anomalies of thought for
which there is no accounting. Thought is not
given to us ready-made, as a kind of psychical

* Predigten ; ersie Samwlung, pp. 85-86.

300 SCHLEIERMACHER.

apparatus by means of which we can see and know
all things ; it is itself determined by the world's
life, and only comes into existence through the
combination and impulse of its elements. So, too,
of will. It is no autocratic power that can lift us
out of our earth-bound sphere, and posit a Divine
in the infinities of space. Where, then, can we
find the Absolute being, and the perfect know-
ledge ? Here, where our life is, where we are.
In all that lives and moves, in every thought we
think, every act we do, is the ground of all, not
only presupposed but present in living reality.
Without this presence we are nothing, and all our
knowledge and volition are but the shadows of a
shadow. The highest knowledge is, then, given to
us not as a thing, or an activity, but as the ground
and source of all our knowing and acting. We
attain to it only in and through the sphere of our
present life. In the concept, taken in the widest
sense, as embracing physical and ethical know-
ledge, we have it as a necessary presupposition ; in
feeling we get it, not apart from but in, through,
and with the entire sphere of the conceptual, as an
immediate certainty ; though not as an object, or as
it is in itself

This feeling, called by Schleiermacher the feel-
ing of absolute dependence, is not to be understood
as if it came to us outside of our relation to the
world. Apart from that relation, we could never
have any consciousness of the Absolute. Feeling is

EPILOGUE. 301

immediate in the sense that it is the direct contact
of the human and the Divine — an inner certainty
that God is in us filling us with His ineffable
presence. It is never immediate in the sense that
it comes directly from heaven ; for we have it only
through our sense of need created by the empirical
consciousness. Nor is this feeling to be taken as
if Schleiermacher meant by it the feeling that is
produced by that tremendous, oppressive, physical
power that is everywhere present in the world, and
before which we are paralysed. Nowhere does our
author speak of God as physical power. Even the
forces in the world, of which He is the Source, are
not so defined. They are rational, ethical, con-
scious, and beneficent; not dynamical, mechanical,
dead with the dead-weight of a dead world. To
speak, too, of this feeling as if it were a state of
passivity, even to unconsciousness, is equally to
misunderstand its true character. Passive we must
be in regard to God — " in whom we live and move
and have our being." What other relation can we
occupy towards Him, if we know what we are
thinking about ? The state of dependence on God
can only be the state of passivity, of surrender, to
the Source and Living Unity of our life ; but in
this dependence and surrender of our will we
attain to our true freedom in every other relation,
cosmic and human. As far as God is concerned
we are not free, and never can be ; yet, in our-
selves and in the world, we are only truly free and

302 SCHLEIERMACHER.

active when we give ourselves up to Him in
absolute loyalty, love, and prostration.

Schleiermacher hesitated to call God a person ;
for he felt how difficult it was to speak of Him as
personal without falling into anthropomorphic mis-
conceptions and confusion. Yet he equally felt
the necessity why he should be thought of as per-
sonal. Without this conception we cannot interpret
to ourselves, or to others, the fulness of our
religious emotion and experience. And so, in
preaching and conversation, he used the personal
names ; though, in exact thinking, he preferred to
regard God as the living God. The epithet
"living" alone distinguishes the Absolute from
materialism and pantheism, and atheistic and blind
necessity. For him, as for the profoundest fathers
of the Church, there was but " one only, the living
and true God."

Schleiermacher's system is thus no mere eclectical
mosaic ; it is a single organic whole. Knowledge,
ethics, and religion set out from the same starting-
point and arrive, each in its own way, at the same
goal. Man is a constant unity of matter and
spirit, and can only be clearly understood in the
light of both. His life is not a series of discon-
nected leaps and bounds: it is an orderly evolution
within the mysterious womb of nature, where all
things are originally immediately one in co-exist-
ence and relation. We have tried to trace this
genesis of man. He is a product of the life of the

EPILOGUE. 303

world with a preponderance of the spiritual ; and
his path, in each individual case, is slowly from
lower to higher, from chaos to the world, where, at
last, he finds rest in Him who is the true life of the
world, and behind the world.

No one who has carefully read even these frag-
mentary expositions of Schleiermacher's specula-
tive views can have failed to see that he was an
evolutionist before his time. It is the method of
evolution he adopts to explain the life and
thought, the ethic and religion of man. Even in
this respect alone his views have a permanent
significance. They adapt themselves to modern
phases of thought better than any other form of
speculation. Though an idealist, in the broadest
sense, he was absolutely true to the real. He did
not try to belittle it, or to explain it by the
spiritual. Both the ideal and the real are equally
valid, and, in their difference, they constitute the
life of the world. In thought they are distinct, in
being they are one, finding their ground and
explanation in God. Kant was, in this respect,
only partially true to the real, while Hegel was
altogether untrue to it, and one-sided. On this
account alone Schleiermacher's philosophy and
ethics deserve a wider study than they have yet
received. " In point of ideal content, system-
atic division, and terminology," says Ueberweg,
" Schleiermacher's system was not developed by
him into a thoroughly-finished and all-including

304 SCHLEIERMACHER.

whole, and is, therefore, far inferior in formal per-
fection to Hegel's and also to Herbart's system ;
but it is free from many defects of narrowness
which are inseparably involved in these systems,
and in its still largely unfinished form is more
capable than any other past-Kantian philosophy of
a pure development, by which the various defects
of other systems may be remedied."*

No philosophy is final, no speculation of man
can lay claim to be the perfect world-wisdom.
But it is surely worth the noting, where there is so
little that is memorable to note, that Schleier-
macher was the first to set out on a possible path-
way, and to indicate certain lines along which dis-
covery and truth might lie. Here, also, in the
fields of philosophy and of ethics, not less than in
the field of theology, he was a true pioneer. The
knowledge of his time was neither so full nor so
extensive as that of our age ; yet the thought of
Schleiermacher, as by a kind of divinatory instinct,
anticipated the findings of evolution and of
biology. In this, as in other things, he was a
prophetic citizen of the times that were to be — a
rare, intellectual, and moral genius, whose keen,
intuitive glance saw far into the depths of the life
and reality of the old, mysterious world.

* History of Philosophy, p. 245. Schleieimacher's chief philo-
sophical and ethical works were published after his death from
notes and memoranda.

INDEX.

PAGE

Absolute, the postulate of
thought and will, knttwing
and being, 192, 215 ; feeling
corresponds to, 196; the unity
of thought and being, 206-7 »
indefinable and indeterminate,
207 ; the Urgritnd of our
dependence, 208 ; the unity
with exclusion of contrasts,
the full and positive unity of
the world, 213 ; absolute

democracy 282

Academy of Science, Berlin,

loi, 115; of Knowledge 244

Activities of reason, 237 ; of

nature 290

Action, egoistic 250

^Esthetic feelings 195

Agriculture, rationalizing of

nature 237

Albertini, J. B. von, school-
fellow of ^ichleiermacher, after-
wards Bishop of Moravian

Brotherhood 27

Amielon Schleiermacher 125

Animals, their attempts after the

ideal 185

Antagonisms of the flesh 261

Appearances, result of force 292

Aquinas, Thomas 1 20

Aristotle 155, 281

Arndt, patriot and reformer 83

Art, 196 ; and religion, 246 ; in

widest sense, 282 ; and culture 286
Athenteum, organ of Romanticism 55

Atonement, theories of 260

AufkldruMg 46

20

PAGE

Bahdt, a dissolute rationalist,
theologian and professor, who
ended by keeping a wine-shop,
and writing indecent novels... 43
Balfour's Foundations of Belief 200

Barby, Moravian Hall 28-29

Being, outer and inner, cosmic
and ethic, 151-2 ; corresponds

to thought 152-4

Bender, quoted i8r

Berkeley 166

Berlin, a Venusberg, 45 ; dawn

of better day 46 47

Bernhardi 47

Bonifas, quoted 212

Book, dead 59

Books, world of, 23 ; writing of,

a sorrow 71

Breslau, Schleiermacher's birth-
place 21

Brinckmann, Gustav von 40

Caird's Spinoza 186

Campbell, MLeod 260

Categories, blind windows, 167 ;
that reason is the formal and
universal principle in know-
ledge is the epochal discovery

of Kant 288

Causality 287

Chaos, confused starting point of
man and all existence . .. 141, 192

Chastity 285

Child, training of 274

Christ, der Mensch an sich, 79 ;
no communion with God ex-
cept through Him, 254 ;

306

INDEX.

I'AGE

founder of the Church, and
centre uf Christian Ethics,
25S-9 ; perfect in all things,
and the ideal of His people,
265; His work and activity,
277-8 ; the hnpe of immortality 297

Christianity, a mii^hty, spiritual
potency, 19 ; discredited by
savage nations because it uses
force in its attempts at civiliza-
tion 276

Christmas Festival, or different
ways of viewing Christianity 77-80

Church fellowship and activity,
105 ; Roman, 106. 125, 284 ;
Eastern, 224 ; fundamental
idea of Schleiermacher's re-
ligious system, 254-5; influence
of the Church. 266-7 ; disci-
pline, 299 ; reform, 271-3 ;
creative work of, 2S0 ; and
State 2S2

Communily, Moravian, 26 ; ethi-
cal, 251-2 ; religious 2^5, 265. 267

Concept, defined, 168 ; timeless,
174; Cf)rresponds to being 177

Confessions and Confessionalism 103

Conscience 188, 204

Consciousness, how it originates.
a mystery, 141 : elements that
go to form, 156 ; three stages
of 192-197

Copenhagen, banquet in favour of
Schleiermacher no

Creeds, revision, 104 ; value of,
105 ; proposed formula for
Protestants T06

Criteria of knowledge [45

Cuvier and construction iiS

Deduction 171-2

Deitv no isolated view 198

Denken, clearest fact of experi-
ence 140

Descartes, 131 ; dualistic system

of, perfected by Spinoza 136

Dilthey, quoted 296

Disposition

Doctrine, necessary growth and

advance, 103; permanent types

Dogmatism, old 61

Dohna, Count von

Dohna, Frederika, Schleier-

macher's interest in

Dorner

Drummond, Henry 186,

Dualism, philosophical attempts

to remove, 133 ; of thought

and will, 189 ; Manicheean. ...

Dih'fen^ obligation

Duty, 250; classification 2

Eberhard

Ei^enthiimlicJikeit

Empirical knowledge

Empiricism

Engel

Erskine of Linlaihen

"Eternal self," an individu;il
type of humanity 65,

" Eternal Womanly " 41,

Ethics, interest for Schleier-
macher, 224 ; principle o*",
227-8; sphere of, 228, 231 ;
tiefined. 229 ; forms of, 233 ;
true, 239 ; Christian. 253 ; re-
lation to Church, 254 ; to
philosophical Ethics, 256 ; de-
fined, 258 ; threefold division,
234 ; Ethics of nature

Evil, a negative fnclor, 231 ; its
<=phere

Family, basis of entire moral
process 241, 2

Fancy, the interpreter of feeling,
196 ; highest lactor in man

Faith 240,

Fasting

Feeling, harmony of thought and
will, 142 ; social, moral and
cesthetic, 195; immediate, 196;
an activity of reason, 199 ;
highest sui)jective conscious-
ness, 201, 223 ; active

■AGE
247

106

,63

41

4n

20

220

232

188

51-2

37
119
170

143
46
20

296
134

1S5
232

73-4

295
253
269

301

INDEX.

307

PAGE

Fetichism 246

Fichte, 17, 65 ; principle of the
Ego, 190; ethical views'... 227, 233

Forms, perfect ethical, 240 ; sub-
stantial 178, 291

Force, living, of the race, 1S7 ;
cosmic, 294; highest 292

Freedom within the soul, neces-
sity in the world, 64-5 ; free
and not free 231

Friedlander 53

Frederick III 74

Garve, an ethical oracle... 46

Gehenna of spiritual conflict 41

Germany's intellectual period — 17

Gneisenau 83

God, not highest power or Caus-
ality, 137; transcendent ground
of the real and the ideal, 143 ;
knowledge ol through the
world, 198, 208 9 ; through
ideas and conscience, 204,
207 ; true conception that of

the living God 3^2

Goethe, Wei titer, 30; poetry,

47 ; pioneer of the new way... 77
Good, highest, the .sum of all
ethical activity, 234 ; aim of

universal reason 237

Greece, religion of sanguine 246

Grunow, Eleanore, tragedy 48

Halle, University, 36 ; sup-
pressed 83

Hare 20

Harms, lieJev the birth hour of

his higher life 62

Heart-cultivation 4°

Hegel's individualism, 120; dia-
lectic at fault, 172 ; Ethics,

227; one-sided 303

Helmholtz .' H'

Heraclitus, eternal flux 166

Herbart '33

Herder '7

Herrnhuter, Schleiermacher a 35, 56

PAGE

Herz, Henriette 47, 53

Hilmer, Moravian teacher 27

Home life 97

Humanitarian movement 17-18

Humanity, u revelation ... 65, 120-I

Huinholdt 53, 125

Hume's argument against Caus-
ality 287

Ideal dethroned, 49 ; and real... 161

Idealism 65, 131

Ideas, innate, 173 ; being of 204

Identity, final, 135 ; of reason
and organization, 163 ; of

thought and will 201

Immortality, a dogmatic concep-
tion, 59 ; Schleiermacher's

views regarding 297-9

Impressions, a chaos 157

Imperative or Sollen 187

Improvising faculty 761 9'

India's phlegmatic religion 246

Individuality, highest human

destiny 66

Induction 17°

Influence, personal loi

Inner life — real life 65

Institutes, Calvin's 109

Intellect, 147, 157; "agility

called" 295

Intuition 165

Jacobi, heathen in understand-
ing. Christian in soul 82

Jena, battle (1806) 83

Jonas, Ludwig 225

Judean religion choleric 246

Judgment, form of knowledge,

174 ; primitive 175

Justiiia civilis 282

Kant's system, 43 ; one-sided
doctrine of will, 190 ; ethical
view corrected by Schleier-
macher, 233-4 ; scepticism as
to being 288

3o8

INDEX.

PACK

Ker, Dr, John, on Schleier-

macher's style 90

YJ\AA\ Social Evohition 220

Klopstock 17

Knowledge, guarded at Barby,
29 ; is what all men think,
147 ; criteria, 146 ; limited,
164 ; criticism, 180 ; ethical,

229; art of 289

Kreuzberg 114

Language identical with thought,

141 ; differences in 163

Law, moral and natural, 230 ;

everywhere in the world 290

Leibnitz and innate ideas... 131, 140
Lessing, a new force in litera-
ture 46, 6t

Letter, adherents of ihe 59

Library men 37

Lipsius 60

Love, maternal, 22 ; attractive
force in spiritual world, 66 ;
reason becoming soul, 249 ;

brotherly 284

Luther, 19, 123 ; avtrse to
schism 268-9

Malebranche 131

Man, starts in chaos, 192 ; a
living unity, 194 ; crown of
the ideal and highest volitional
being, 230 ; types of culture,
281 ; product of life of earth,
294 ; cycle of his life, 294 ;
representation and mirror of
God, 296; immortal, 299; God
is the ground of his thought

and being 300

Martensen's Autobiography, no;

Dogmatik quoted 119

Martineau on immortality 297

Marriage, imperfect, 68; ideal.. 96-8

Mass, Roman 106

Materialism not to be explained
by idealism, ox vice versa 159

Matter and intellect independent,
yet one without the other an
abstraction, 160 ; reason the

essence of both 229

Maurice 20, 260

M^ya, doctrine of 166

Method, critical 131

Middle Ages, a bondage 17

Milton's deceiving glass of

opinion 120

Ministry, Christian 39

Miracle, a dogmatic conception 59

Modes, ideal and real 213

Monologues, ethical manifesto... 64
Moravian Community, aims, 26 ;

ideals 33

Miiller, Julius 20

Miiller, Max 141

Napoleon crushed Europe, 82 ;
hated Protestantism and specu-
lative philosophy, 86 ; de-
nounced by Schleiermacher... 125

Natura 7iaiura7is 137, 191, 207

Nature, a form of reason 229

Neander, historical genius ... 62

Necessity, sway outside of us 64

Nicolai 46

Nitsch 20

Novalis (F. Hardenberg) 62

Oehlenschlager, Danish poet no

Obiter Dicta quoteil 118

Obligation 187

Order of Red Eagle conferred on

Schleiermacher 85

Organic function, 147, 156-7 ;

spontaneity and receptivity.. 159

Organization 147

OrLhodo.Ky and rationalism 63

Patriotism 83-4

Perception 165

Perseverance 250

Pfleiderer, Otto 60, 61, 139

Philosophy, task of, 131 ; highest
idea, iSo ; sphere 217

INDEX.

309

Physical, a limited ethical 1S5

Piety 34

Plato, 43 ; translation, 70 ;

shadow- world 1 66

Play, 286 ; card-playing 286

Plodder, earnest 37

Politician, Liberal 83-5, 102

Popular preacher defined 93

Power of the pulpit 94

Preaching 9t-9S

Protestantism 273

Punishment, eternal, 23 ; capital,

a survival of paganism 275

Quietism 191

Ramler 146

Rauch's bust of Schleiermacher 146
Reason and feeling a galvanic
pile, 82; critique, 144; func-
tion, 169 ; identity, 177 ;
ethical, 228, 235-6 ; activities 238

Reformation 17

Religion, inspiration of life, 18 :
what it is, 58-9 ; psychological
basis, 197 ; and philosophy ... 216
Reuler quoted 255

Sack 47

Salvation 258-9

Scharnhorst 83

Schelling 77, 131, 14°, 227

Schema and schematizing 170

Schenkel's Life of Schleier-
macher I2I-2

Schiller 17. 84

Schlegel, F., critic and genius,
48 ; leader of Romantic School,
50 ; influence on Schleier-
macher, 50-1 ; Lucinde

Schleiermacher, intellectual out-
look, 18; religious significance,
1S-19 ; birth, 21 ; education,
22 ; love of nature, 23 ; scepti-
cism, 24 ; Moravian influence,
27-29 ; difficulties as to Atone-
ment, 30-35 ; left the Brother-

hood, 33 ; student at Halle,
36 ; philosophical and theo-
logical studies, 37-9 ; licenliate
of Church, 39 ; tutor at Schlo-
bitten, 39-42 ; teacher at Berlin
and assistant minister ai Lands-
berg, 42 ; influence of Kant
and Spinoza, 423 ; death of
father, 43 ; chaplain at Berlin,
45 ; loneliness, 48 ; fellowship
of Schlegel, 50 ; Confidential
Letters, 51 ; friendship with
Mrs. Herz, 52 55; studies and
labours, 55 ; Reden, era in
theology, 5762 ; Monologues,
resumi Gi ^'^-^"] ; love-entangle-
ments, 68 ; Court Preacher at
Stolpe, 69 ; translation of
Plato, 69-70 ; Critique of
Ethics, 71 ; pastoral work and
reforms, 72-73 ; professor at
Halle, 75 ; friendship with H.
Steffens, and acquaintance with
Goethe, 76-77 ; published
Christmas Festival, 77-80 ;
patriot and labours, 81-84; ""e-
ceived Order of Red Eagle, 85;
treatise on 1st Timothy, 86 ;
preacher, style, and influence,
89-95 ' marriage and per-
manent settlement in Berlin,
97 ; death of only son, 97-98 ;
founding of Berlin University,
99 ; head of Theological
Faculty, 99-101 ; Minister of
Public Instruction, lOI ; efforts
alter Union of Reformed
Churches, 102 ; views on
Creeds, 103-6 ; publication of
Glattbenslehre, 108-9 » '"^ip to
Norway, no; illness and
death, n i - 1 1 4 ; tributes, 115;
personal appearance, 116;
characteristics of his spiritual
life, 1 1 8- 1 25 , kinship of his
philosophy with past and
present 131

3IO

INDEX,

Schleiermacher, Gottlieb, fanatic,
sceptic and evangelical, 21 ;

quarrel with Friedrich 32

Schleiermacher, Nathaniel, early

death 97

School, the 243

Schopenhaner, 132-3 ; criticism

of Kant 167

Schweizer 20, 225

Self-consciousness, God given in,
143 ; stages, 192-6 ; immedi-
ate 196 7, 202

Self educated, conceited 37

Self-renewal 1256

Semler 37

Senses, organic, 141 ; impres-
sions, 147, 156 ; activity of,

168-9 ; inner and outer 295

Sensation 200- 1

Sentiment, plithisis of mind 96

Sin 231, 258-9, 265

Shakespeare 54

Sigwart, 60 ; quoted 213

Sociability 240

Solitude 96

Space, objective and subjective... 167

Speculative knowledge 179

Spencer, Herbert, highest force 292

Spinoza, the repudiated, 43 ;

definition of God, world and

man, 137; denied freedom, 139;

Ethica^ 1S6 ; IVact. llieohg.

Politicus 216

State, 241 ; a personality, 242 ;
Christian duty of, 276 ; and

Church 282

Steffens, 76 ; autobiography 117

Stein 83

Strauss 77, 139

Stubenrauch, Prof. 3S

Spirit, Holy, ruling principle of
the Church 271, 277-281, 284

Taine 141

Theology 99-100

Tholuck 20

Thomas Aquinas 120

Thought, 140 ; corresponds to
being, 149, 152-4; elements,
155 ; forms, 168 ; creative... 182

Tieck 17,47

Timothy, 1st..: 80

Transcendent 143

Trinity Church, Berlin 88, 121

Tulloch, Principal 20

Twesten 225. 229

Ueberweg, quoted 304

Ullmann 20

Ulrici quoted 217

Unconditioned 292

Unity, self-conscious, cosmic and

absolute 135

Urgrund 20S

Usteri 20

Veit, Dorothea 47

Venusberg 45

Virtue 247-9

Vocation, duties of 252

Vows io5

Wackenroder 49

Wieland, 17; poems 30

Will, intelleciual side, 142, 183 ;

the universal 187

Willich, Henriette von 97

Wisdom 249

IVissen, rational knowledge 145

Wolfif, F. A 37

Women's influence 40-1

World, mirror of spirit, 64 ;
order and law, 205 ; sum of
contrasted being, 209 ; and
God correlates, 211 ; principle
reality of knowledge, 215 ;

forces 290

World- wisdom 232, 290-1

Zaremba and the Reiicn 62

Zinzendorf, Count von 26

Zdllner 53

ERRATA

Page 20, line 6, read "Schweizer."

,, 93, ,, 18, for "ascribes" read "describes."
„ 184, last X\wt, for "coalesces with" read "grows
out into " — {" verwachst ").