The Philosophy of Life and Language. Friedrich von Schlegel
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character, a similar course of inversion is noticeable in it. Beginning with a strict, not to say absolute, limitation of the reason, and with an opposition to its assumptions, it also ended in its investiture with supreme authority—not to say in its deification. The founder[4] of the modern philosophy of Germany commenced his teaching with a lengthy demonstration that the reason is totally incapable of attaining to a knowledge of the suprasensible, and that, by attempting it, it does but involve itself in endless disputes and difficulties. And then, on this assumed incompetency of the reason for the suprasensible was based the doctrine of the need, the necessity of faith—nay, faith itself.[5] But this arbitrary faith appeared to have but little reliance on itself; and, when closely viewed, turned out to be the old reason, which, after being solemnly displaced from the front of the philosophical palace, was now again, slightly altered and disguised, set up behind it as a useful but humble postern. Dissatisfied with such a system, the philosophical Me (Ich, Ego) chose another and a new road, that of absolute science,[6] in which it might, from the very first, do as it pleased—might bluster and fluster at will. But soon it became plain, that in this idealistic doctrine there was no room for any but a subjective reason-god devoid of all objective reality. In it the absolute Ego or Me of each individual was substituted for and identified with the divine. Against this certainty of the “Me,” therefore, there arose first of all a suspicion, and lastly the reproach of atheism. But, in truth, we ought to be extremely scrupulous in applying this term in all cases where the question does not turn on a rude denial of the truth, but rather on a highly erroneous confusion of ideas. At least, it would be well if, in such a case, we were to distinguish the imputed atheism by the epithet of scientific, in order to indicate thereby that the censure and the name apply in truth only to the error of the system, and not to the character of the author. For with such a scientific atheism, the sternest stoicism in the moral doctrine may, as indeed was actually the case here, be easily combined. Quite weary, however, of the transcendent vacuity of this ideal reason and mere dialectical reasoning, German philosophy now took a different road. It turned more to the side of nature,[7] in whose arms she threw herself in perfect admiration, thinking to find there alone life and the fullness thereof. Now, although this new philosophy of nature has borne many noble fruits of science, still even it has been haunted by that delusive phantom of the Absolute, and it is not free from liability to the reproach of a pantheistic deification of Nature. But properly and accurately speaking, it was not nature itself that was set up as the supreme object of veneration, but this same phantom of reason, which was taken as the basis and fundamental principle of nature. It was, in short, nothing but the old metaphysical one-times-one[8] in a somewhat novel application and more vivid form. Here, therefore, also did the system commence with a seeming disgust at the reason, and with a subordination of it to nature, in order to conclude with the absolute principle of the reason.
Viewed, however, as a philosophical science of nature, it has rather to answer for some occasional errors and perverse extravagances, than for any thoroughly consequent and systematic carrying out of the ingrafted error into all its parts. Moreover, a broad distinction must undoubtedly be drawn between its different advocates and promulgators. In these last days German philosophy has, in a measure at least, reverted again into the empty vacuum of the absolute idea.[9] The latter, indeed, and the idol of absolute reason which is enshrined therein, is no more a mere inward conception, but is objectively understood and set up as the fundamental principle of all entity. But still, when we consider how the essence of mind is expressly made to consist in negation, and how also the spirit of negation is predominant through the whole system, a still worse substitution appears to have taken place, inasmuch as, instead of the living God, this spirit of negation, so opposed to Him, is, in erroneous abstraction, set up and made a god of. Here, therefore, as well as elsewhere, a metaphysical lie assumes the place of a divine reality.
Thus, then, do we every where observe a strange internal correspondence and affinity between the several aberrations of our age. Here the remotest mental extremes, which externally seem to repel each other, suddenly converge at the same point of delusive light, or rather of brilliant darkness. Instances of this correspondence startle us where we least expect to meet with them. An English poet,[10] perhaps the greatest, certainly the most remarkable poet of our age, in his tragic delineation of the oldest fratricide, has portrayed the prime mover of this deed, the enemy of the human race, and the king of the bottomless pit, as the bold censurer of the divine order of things, and the head of all discontented spirits, and leader of the opposition of the whole creation. In this light he has painted him with unparalleled boldness, and with such moving and astonishing truthfulness, that all previous descriptions by the greatest poets seem but arbitrary and unreal phantoms when compared with this portrait, which was evidently a favorite sketch, for the author’s secret partiality betrays itself in the skill and pains with which he has lavished on this dark figure all the magic colors of his fancy. Thus, then, in this poetic creation, the same hostile principle—the same absolute, i.e., evil spirit of negation and contradiction that forms the consummation of the errors of German philosophy, notwithstanding its abstract unintelligibility—is enthroned amid the disordered system. And so, by a strange law of “pre-established harmony,” the anti-Christian poet and these anti-Christian thinkers unexpectedly meet together at the point of a spurious sublimity. In any case, however, this last instance forms the third stage of idealistic confusion, and certainly the last grade of scientific atheism.
Now, briefly to recapitulate my own convictions and my view of the relation subsisting between the philosophy of life which I propose to set before you, and the prevalent philosophy and science of the age, the following few remarks will suffice. I honor and admire the discoveries so pregnant with important results which natural philosophy has made in our days, but especially the gigantic strides which the study of nature in France has taken; so far, at least, as they contain and have established a real and solid advance of human science; so far, too, as I am acquainted with them, and in my sphere understand them. On the other hand, I can not but take exception to that admixture of materialism which has been infused into them by the ruling philosophical system of a previous age, which in France has still so many followers. I honor, too, and love German science, with its diligent and comprehensive research. Nay, I value the natural philosophy of Germany even still more than that of France, since, while it adopts the same great discoveries, it views them in a more spiritual light. As for that idealistic jargon, however, which runs parallel and is interwoven with it, on which, indeed, it was originally based, and from which even now it is any thing but clear—this I can not regard in any other light than, what it really is, an intellectual delusion of the most pernicious kind, and one which will inevitably produce the most destructive and fatal consequences on the human mind.
What has been now said will suffice for our notice of the opposing systems of philosophy. Henceforward we shall have no need to turn our looks to this side, but shall be able to give our attention solely and calmly to the development of that which I have already announced, and have now to communicate to you. Previously, however, to entering upon this subject, it seemed to me advisable, by contrasting the false starting-point with the true center of philosophy, to set the latter before you in a clearer and distincter light.
The dialectical faculty of abstraction is naturally the predominant one, and the most completely evolved in the thinking mind. Accordingly, most thinkers have set it up as the basis of their speculations, in order to arrive the more rapidly at the desired end of an absolute science; or, if the habit of mind be more disposed that way, at an absolute not-knowing, and the rejection of all certainty; which, in the main, is quite as false, and, in this respect, identical with the former. But it is not sufficient to follow any such a partial course, and to start from any one side merely of the human consciousness. On the right and sure road of a complete and thorough investigation, our first duty is to study the human consciousness in its fullness and living development, in all its faculties and powers. And then, in the second place, when, by thus assuming a position in the center, man has enabled himself to take a complete survey of the whole, he may unquestionably proceed to inquire what kind and what degree of knowledge, with such a consciousness, he is capable of attaining, both of the external world and of the suprasensible, and how far the latter is conceivable and its existence possible. Now, just as generally the soul is the principle of all life in nature, so is the thinking soul the center of the human consciousness. But in the thinking soul is comprised the reason which distinguishes,