He treats with
profound
contempt all philo-
sophers who admit two principles; and will
not allow the name of Philosophy to any
?
sophers who admit two principles; and will
not allow the name of Philosophy to any
?
Madame de Stael - Germany
hathitrust.
org/access_use#pd-google
? 102 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
easily drawn, when we renounce the highest
truths. Lessing's all-powerful polemics dis-
closed doubt upon the most important ques-
tions, and led to new inquiries of every kind.
Lessing himself cannot be considered either
as a materialist or as an idealist; but the
necessity of examination and study to
the acquisition of knowledge, was the main
spring of his doctrine. "If the Almighty/'
said he, " were to hold Truth in one hand,
"and the Search after truth in the other,
"it is the latter I should ask of him in pre-
"ference. "
Lessing was not orthodox in religion.
Christianity, in him, was not a necessary
thing, like sentiment; and yet he was ca-
pable of admiring it philosophically. He
understood its relations with the human
heart, and he ever considers all the different
ways of thinking, from a point of view,
where he is able to see them all. Nothing
intolerant, no exclusion, is to be found in
his writings. When we take our stand, in
the centre of universal ideas, we never
fail to have sincerity, depth, and extent of
mind. Whatever is unjust, vain, and nar-
row, is derived from the desire of refer-
ring every thing to certain partial views,
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? GERMAN PHILOSOPHERS. 10$
which we have taken and appropriated to
ourselves, and which we make the objects of
our self-love.
Lessing expresses, in an acute and plain
style, opinions full of warmth. Hemsterhuis,
a Dutch philosopher, was the first who, in
the middle of the eighteenth century, showed,
in his writings, the greater part of the liberal
ideas, upon which the new German school is
founded. His works are also very remark-
able, for the contrast which there is between
the character of his style, and the thoughts
which it conveys. Lessing is an enthusiast,
with an ironical manner; Hemsterhuis, an
enthusiast, with the language of a mathema-
tician. Writers who devote the most abstract
metaphysics to the defence of the most ex-
alted systems, and who conceal the liveliness
of imagination under the austerity of logic,
are a phenomenon which is scarcely to be
found, except amongst the German nations.
Men, who are always upon their guard
against imagination, when they have it not,
are more ready to trust those writers who
banish talent and sensibility from philoso-
phical discussions, as if it were not, at least,
as easy to be absurd, upon such subjects, in
syllogisms as with eloquence. For a syllo-
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? 104 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
gism, which always takes for its basis that
such a thing is or is not, reduces the im-
mense crowd of our impressions to a simple
alternative, in every case; whilst eloquence
embraces them all together. Nevertheless,
although Hemsterhuis has too frequently ex-
pressed philosophical truths,' in an algebraic
manner, there is a sentiment of morality, a
real love of the beautiful, in his writings,
which cannot but be admired; he was one of
the first to feel the union which exists be-
tween idealism, or (as I should rather say)
the free-will of man, and the stoic morality;
and it is in this point of view, above all, that
the new doctrine of the Germans is of great
importance.
Even before the writings of Kant had ap-
peared, Jacobi had attacked the philosophy
of sensation, and still more victoriously the
system of morality founded upon interest.
He flid not confine himself strictly, in his
philosophy, to abstract forms of reasoning.
His analysis of the human soul is full of elo-
quence and of charms. In the following
chapters, I shall examine the finest part of
his works, that which relates to morality;
but, as a philosopher, he deserves separate
honour. Better instructed than any one else
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? GERMAN PHILOSOPHERS. 105
in the history of ancient and modern philo-
sophy, he devoted his studies to the support
of the most simple truths. The first amongst
the philosophers of his day, he made religious
feeling the foundation of our whole intellec-
tual nature; and, it may be said, that he
has only learnt the language of metaphysi-
cians and learned men, to do homage, in it,
to virtue and divinity.
Jacobi has shown himself the opposer of
the philosophy of Kant, but he does not
attack it as if he was himself the partisan of
the philosophy of sensation *. On the con-
trary, his objection to Kant is, that he does
not rely sufficiently upon the support of re-
ligion, considered as the only possible phi-
losophy in those truths which are beyond the
reach of experience.
The doctrine of Kant has met with many
other opponents in Germany; but it has not
been attacked by those who have not under-
stood it, or by those who opposed the opi-
nions of Locke and Condillac, as a complete
answer to it. Leibnitz still retained too
great an ascendant over the minds of his
countrymen, for them not to pay respect to
* This philosophy has, in Germany, generally received
the name of The Empiric Philosophy.
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? 106 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
any opinion which was analogous to his. A
long list of writers have, for ten years, been
incessantly engaged in writing commentaries
on the works of Kant. But, at the present
day, the German philosophers, although
agreeing with Kant as to the spontaneous
activity of thought, have adopted each a
system of his own on that point. In fact,
who is there who has never endeavoured,
according to his abilities, to understand him-
self? But, because man has given an innu-
merable variety of explanations of his nature,
does it therefore follow that such a philoso-
phical examination is useless? Certainly not.
This variety itself is a proof of the interest
which such an examination ought to inspire.
In our days, people would be glad to have
done with moral nature, and would readily
pay its reckoning to hear no more of it.
Some say, the language was fixed on such a
day of such a month, and that, from that
moment, the introduction of a new word
became a barbarism; others affirm, that the
rules of the drama were definitely settled
in such a year (and it is a great pity that a
genius, which would now set about making
any change in them, was not born before
that year), in which every literary discus-
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? GERMAN PHILOSOPHER*. 107
sion, past, present, and future, was deter-
mined without appeal. At last, it has been
decided in metaphysics above all, that since
the days of Condillac it has been impossible
to take a single step more, without going
out of the way. It is allowed that the phy-
sical sciences are making progress, because it
cannot be denied; but, in the career of phi-
losophy and literature, the human mind is to
be obliged to be incessantly running the ring
of vanity around the same circle.
To remain attached to that experimental
philosophy which offers a species of evi-
dence, false in principle, although specious
in form, is by no means to simplify the sys-
tem of the universe. By considering every
thing as not existing which is beyond the
reach of our sensations, it is easy to give light
enough to a system, the limits of which we
ourselves prescribe; it is a work which de-
pends upon the doer of it. But does every
thing beyond those limits exist the less, be-
cause it is counted as nothing? The imper-
fect truth of speculative philosophy is ever
much nearer to the essence of things, than
that apparent light which belongs to the
art of solving difficulties of a certain order.
When one reads in the philosophical writings
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? 108 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
of the last century these phrases so frequently
repeated, this is all the truth that exists,
every thing else is chimerical, it puts one in
mind of the well-known story of a French
actor, who, before he would fight with a
man much fatter than himself, proposed to
chalk out on his adversary's body a line, the
hits on the outside of which should go for
nothing. Yet there was the same nature
without that line as within it, and equally
capable of receiving a mortal wound. In the
same manner, those who place the pillars of
Hercules on the boundary of their horizon,
cannot prevent the existence of a nature be-
yond their own, in which there exists a
higher degree of life, than in the sphere of
matter to which they would confine us.
TKe two most celebrated philosophers who
have succeeded Kant, are Fichte and Schel-
ling. They too pretended to simplify his
system; but it was by putting in its place a
species of philosophy more elevated even than
his, that they hoped to accomplish it.
Kant had, with a firm hand, separated the
two empires of the soul and of the senses.
This philosophical duality was fatiguing to
minds which love to repose in simple ideas.
From the days of the Greeks to our own*
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? GERMAN PHILOSOPHERS. 109
this axiom has often been repeated, that every
thing is one, and the efforts of philosophers
have always been directed to find in one
single principle, either in the soul or in na-
ture, an explanation of the world. I shall,
nevertheless, venture to sav, that it appears
to me to be one of the titles which Kant's
philosophy has to the confidence of enlight-
ened men, that it affirms, what we feel to be
the case, that there exists both a soul and an
external nature, and that they act mutually
one upon the other by such or such laws. I
know not why a greater degree of philoso-
phical elevation is to be found in the idea of
one single principle, whether material or in-
tellectual; . there being one, or two, does not
render the universe more easy of comprehen-
sion, and our feeling agrees better with those
systems that acknowledge a distinction be-
tween physics and morality.
Fichte and Schelling have divided between
them the empire which Kant acknowledged
to be a divided one, and each has chosen
that his own half should be the whole. Both
have gone out of the sphere of ourselves, and
have been desirous of rising to a knowledge
of the system of the universe. Very dif-
ferent in that from Kant, who has applied as
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? 110 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
much power of mind so show those things,
at the knowledge of which the human mind
can never arrive, as to explain those which
are within its reach.
No philosopher, however, before Fichte,
had extended the system of idealism with
such scientific strictness; he makes the whole
universe consist of the activity of mind. All
conception, all imagination, proceeds from
that; it is on account of this system that
he has been suspected of unbelief. He was
heard to say, that, in his next lesson, he
should create God, and the world was scan-
dalized with reason at such an expression. --
What he meant by it was, that he should
show how the idea of the Divinity arose, and
was developed in the mind of man. The
principal merit of Fichte's philosophy is, the
incredible attention that it implies; for he is
not contented with referring every thing to the
inward existence of man, to the self which
forms the basis of every thing, but he goes
on to distinguish in this self what is
transient and what is permanent. In fact,
when we reflect on the operations of the
understanding, we think ourselves eye-wit-
nesses of our own thoughts; we think we
see them pass before us like a stream,
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? GERMAN PHILOSOPHERS. Ill
whilst the portion of self, which is con-
templating them, is immoveable. It often
happens to those who unite an impassioned
character to an observing mind, to sec
themselves suffer, and to feel within them-
selves a being superior to its own pain,
which observes it, and reproves or pities it
by turns. ,
We are subject to continual changes from
the external circumstances of our life, and
yet we always have the feeling of our iden-
tity. What is it, then, that attests this
identity, if not that self ', always the same,
which sees another self, modified by im-
pressions from without, pass before its tri-
bunal?
It is to this immoveable soul, the witness
of the moveable soul, that Fichte attributes
the gift of immortality, and the power of
creating, or (to translate more exactly) of
drawing to a focus in itself the image of the
universe. This system, which makes every
thing rest on the summit of our existence,
and places a pyramid on its point, is . singu-
larly difficult to follow. It strips our ideas
of the colours which so well enable us to
understand them; and the fine arts, poetry,
and the contemplation of nature, disappear
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? 112 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
in abstractions which are without any mix-
ture of imagination or sensibility.
Fichte considers the exterior world only
as a boundary of our existence, on which
thought is at work. In his system, this
boundary is created by the soul itself, the
activity of which is constantly exerted on
the web it has formed. What Fichte has
written upon the metaphysical self', is a little
like the waking of Pygmalion's statue, which,
touching alternately itself and the stone on
which it was placed, says, by turns, This is I,
and This is not I; but when, taking the hand
of Pygmalion, it exclaims, This indeed is I--
that excites a sentiment which is much be-
yond the sphere of abstract ideas. Idealism,
stripped of sentiment, has nevertheless the
advantage of exciting, to the highest degree,
the activity of the mind; but nature and
love, by this system, lose all their charms;
for, if the objects which we see, and the
beings whom we love, are nothing but the
works of our own ideas, it is man himself
that may be considered as the great cceliba-
tary of the world.
It must be acknowledged, however, that
the system of Fichte has two great advan-
tages; the one is its stoic morality, which"
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? GERMAN PHILOSOPHERS. 113
admits of no excuses; for, every thing pro-
ceeding from self, it is self alone which has
to answer for the use it makes of the will:
the other is an exercise of thought, at once
so severe and so subtile, that a man who had
mastered the system, even though he should
not adopt it, would have acquired a capacity
of attention, and a sagacity in analysis, which
would afterwards make any other kind of
study a plaything to him.
In whatever manner the utility of meta-
physics is judged of, it cannot be denied, that
it is the gymnastic exercise of the mind. It
is usual to set children on different kinds of
wrestling in their earliest years, although it
may never be necessary for them to fight in
that manner. It may be truly said, that the
study of the "ideal system of metaphysics is
almost a certain means of developing the
moral faculties of those who devote them-
selves to it. Thought, like every thing pre-
cious, resides at the bottom of ourselves;
for, on the surface, there is nothing but folly
and insipidity. But when men are early
obliged to dive into their own minds, and to
see all that passes within them, they draw
from thence a power, and plainness of judg-
ment, which are never lost.
VOL. HI. I
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? 114 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
For abstract ideas, Fichte has a mathe-
matical head, like Euler or La Grange. He
has a singular contempt for all expressions
which in any manner relate to substance;
existence even is too common a word for him.
Being, principle, essence, are words scarcely
airy enough to mark the subtile shades in his
opinions. It might be said, that he was
afraid of coming in contact with realities,
and was always shrinking from them. In
reading his works, or conversing with him,
one loses the consciousness of this world,
and feels it necessary, like the ghosts de-
scribed by Homer, to recall to one's self the
remembrances of life.
Materialism absorbs the soul by degrading
it; the idealism of Fichte, by exalting it,
separates it from nature; in both extremes,
sentiment, which is the real beauty of exist-
ence, has not the rank it deserves.
Schejling has much more knowledge of
nature and the fine arts than Fichte, and his
lively imagination could not be satisfied with
abstract ideas; but, like Fichte, his object
is to reduce existence to a single principle.
He treats with profound contempt all philo-
sophers who admit two principles; and will
not allow the name of Philosophy to any
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? GERMAN PHILOSOPHERS. 115
system but that which unites every thing,
and explains every thing. Unquestionably
he is right in saying that system would be
the best; but where is it? Schelling pre-
tends, that nothing is more absurd than the
expression, so commonly used--the philoso-
phy of Tlaho -- the philosophy of Aristotle.
Should we say, The geometry of Euler--the
geometry of La Grange? There is but one,
philosophy, according to Schelling, or there
must be none at all. Certainly, if by phi-
losophy we only understand the enigma of
the universe, we may say, with truth, that
there is no philosophy.
The system of Kant appeared insufficient
to Schelling, as it did to Fichte; because he
acknowledges two natures, two sources of
our ideas--external objects, and the faculties
of the soul. But, in order to arrive at that
unity, so much desired; in order to get rid
of that double life, physical and moral, which
gives so much offence to the partisans of
simple ideas, Schelling refers every thing to
nature, while Fichte makes every thing spring
from the soul. Fichte sees nothing in nature
but the opposite of mind: in his eyes it is
only a limit or a chain, from which we are
constantly to endeavour to free ourselves.
i2
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? 116 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS. <
The system of Schelling gives more rest, and
greater delight, to the imagination; never-
theless it necessarily returns into that of
Spinosa; but, instead of sinking the mind
down to the level of matter, which is the
practice in our days, Schelling endeavours to
raise matter up to mind; and although
his theory entirely depends upon physical
nature, it is/ nevertheless, a very ideal one
at the bottom, and still more so in its form.
The ideal and the real supply, in his lan-
guage, the place of intelligence and matter,
of imagination and experience; and it is in
the re-union of these two powers in complete
harmony, that, in his opinion, the single
principle of the organized world consists.
This harmony, of which the two poles and
the centre form the image, and which is
comprised in the number three, so myste-
rious at all times, has supplied Schelling
with the most ingenious applications. He
believes it is to be found* in the fine arts, as
well as in nature; and his works on physical
science are thought highly of, even by those
learned men who confine themselves to the
consideration of facts, and their results. In-
deed, in examining the mind, he endeavours
to demonstrate how sensations and intel-
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? GERMAN PHILOSOPHERS. 117
lectual conceptions are confounded in the
sentiment which unites Avhatever is involun-
tary and reflective in both of them, and thus
contains all the myitery of life.
What is most interesting in these sys-
tems is their developements. The first basis
of the pretended explanation of the world
is equally true, and equally false, in the
. greater number of theories; for all of them
are comprised in the immense thought,
which it is their object to embrace: but,
in their application to the things of this
world, these theories are very refined, and
often throw great light on many particular
objects.
Schelling, it cannot be denied, approaches
nearly to the philosophers called Pantheists,
that is to say, who attribute to nature all the
attributes of the Divinity. But what dis-
tinguishes him is, the astonishing sagacity
with which he h^s managed to connect his
doctrine with the art? and sciences; he is
instructive, and requires thought, in all his
observations: and the depth of his mind is
particularly surprising when he does not pre-
tend to appljr it to the secret of the universe;
for no man can attain a superiority which
cannot exist between beings of the same
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? 118
PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
kind, at whatever distance they may be
placed from each other.
To kee|>> up the ideas of religion in the
midst of the apotheosis of nature, the school
of Schelling supposes that the individual
within us perishes, but that the inward
qualities which we possess, enter again into
the great whole of the eternal creation.
Such an immortality is terribly like death;
for physical death itself is nothing but
universal nature recalling to herself the gifts
she had given to the individual.
Schelling draws from his system some
very noble conclusions on the necessity of
cultivating in the soul its immortal qualities,
those which are in relation with the uni-
verse, and of despising every thing in us
which relates to our circumstances alone.
But are not the affections of the heart, and
even conscience itself, allied to the relations
of this life? In most situations we feel two
distinct motions--that which unites us with
the general order, and that which leads us to
our particular interests; the sentiment of
duty, and personality. The noblest of these
motions is the universal. But it is, exactly,
because we have an instinct which would
preserve our existence, that it is a fine thing
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? GERMAN PHILOSOPHERS. 119
to sacrifice that instinct; it is because we are
beings, whose centre is in ourselves, that
our attraction towards the assemblage of all
things is generous; in a word, it is because
we. exist individually and distinctly, that we
can choose out and love one another. What
then becomes of that abstract immortality
which would strip us of our dearest recollec-
tions as mere accidental modifications?
Would you, say they in Germany, rise again
in all your present circumstances ? --Would
you be revived a Baron, or a Marquis?
Certainly not. But who would not rise again
a mother or a daughter? and how could we
be ourselves again, if we had no longer the
same feelings of friendship? Vague ideas of
re-union with nature will, in time, destroy
the empire of religion over our souls; for re-
ligion is addressed to each of us individually.
Providence protects us in all the details of
our lot. Christianity is adapted to every
mind, and sympathizes, like a confidential
friend, with the wants of every heart.
Pantheism, on the contrary, that is, nature
deified, by inspiring religion for every thing,
disperses it over the world, instead of con-
centrating it in ourselves.
This system has at all times had many
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? 120 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
partisans amongst philosophers. Thought is
always tending, more and more, to gene-
ralization; and the labour of the mind, in
extending its boundaries, is often taken for
a new idea. We hope to arrive at a know-
ledge of the universe, as of space, by always
removing fences, and setting difficulties far-
ther from us without resolving them; and
yet we are no nearer to infinity. Sentiment
alone reveals it to us, without explaining it.
What is truly admirable in German philo-
sophy is the examination of ourselves to
which it leads; it ascends even to the origin
of the will, even to the unknown spring of
the course of our life; and then penetrating
the deepest secrets of grief, and of faith, it
enlightens and strengthens us. But all sys-
tems which aspire to the explanation of the
universe, can hardly be analysed with clear-
ness by any expressions: words are not
proper for ideas of this kind, and the con-
sequence is, that, in making use of them, ail
things are overshadowed by the darkness
which preceded the creation, not illuminated
by the light which succeeded it. Scientific
expressions, lavished on a subject in which
every one feels that he is interested, are re-
volting to self-love. These writings, so dif-
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? GERMAN PHILOSOPHERS. 121
ficult to comprehend, however serious one
may be, give occasion to pleasantry; for
mistakes are always made in the dark. It is
pleasing to reduce, to a few leading and
accessible assertions, that crowd of shades
and restrictions which appear quite sacred
to the author of them, but which the profane
soon forget or confound.
The Orientalists have at all times been
idealists, and Asia in no respect resembles
the south of Europe. The excessive heat
in those countries leads to contemplation, as
the excessive cold of the north does. The
religious systems of India . are very melan-
choly and spiritual, whilst the people of the
south of Europe have always had an inclina-
tion for rather a material kind of Paganism.
The learned of England, who have travelled
into India, have made deep researches about
Asia; and Germans who have not had oppor-
tunities, like the princes of the Ocean, to in-
form themselves with their own eyes, have,
by dint of study alone, arrived at very inte-
resting discoveries on the religion, the lite-
rature, the languages, of the Asiatic nations;
they have been led to think, from many in-
dications, that supernatural light once shone
upon the people of those countries, and that
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? 122 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
the traces of it still remain indelible. The
philosophy of the Indians can only be suffi-
ciently understood by the German idealists;
a similarity of opinion assists them in com-
prehending it.
Frederick Schlegel, not contented with the
knowledge of almost all the languages of
Europe, devoted unheard-of labours to ac-
quiring the knowledge of the country which
was the cradle of the world. The work
which he has just published on the language
and philosophy of the Indians, contains pro-
found views and real information worthy the
attention of enlightened men in Europe.
He thinks, and many philosophers (in the
number of whom Bailly may be reckoned)
have maintained the same opinion, that a
primitive people inhabited some parts of the
world, and particularly Asia, at a period an-
terior to all the documents of history. Fre-
derick Schlegel finds the traces of this people
in the intellectual advancements of nations,
and the formation of their languages. --
He observes a remarkable resemblance be-
tween the leading ideas, and even the words
which express them, amongst many nations
of the world, even when, so far as we are
informed by history, they have never bad any
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? GERMAN PHILOSOPHERS. 123
connexion with each other. Frederick
Schlegel does Hot adopt the very generally
received opinion,thatmen began inthesavage
state, and that their mutual wants, by degrees,
formed languages. Thus to attribute the
developement of the human mind and soul
to our animal nature, is to give it a very gross
origin, and Reason combats the hypothesis,
as much as Imagination rejects it.
We can hardly conceive by what grada-
tion it would be possible, from the cry of
the savage, to arrive at the perfection of the
Greek language; it would be said, that, in
the progress necessary to traverse such an
infinite distance, every step would: cross an
abyss; we see, in our days, that savages do
not civilize themselves, and that it is from
neighbouring nations that they are taught,
with great labour, what they themselves are
ignorant of. One is much tempted, there-
fore, to think, that a primitive nation did
establish the human race; and whence was
that people formed, if not from revelation?
All nations have, at all times, expressed regret
for the loss of a state of happiness which
preceded the period in which they existed:
whence arises this idea, so widely spread?
will it be said, it is an error? Errors that are
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? 124 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
universal are always founded upon some
truth, altered and disfigured perhaps, but
bottomed on facts concealed in the night of
ages, or some mysterious powers of nature.
Those who attribute the civilization of the
human race to the effects of physical wants
uniting men with one another, will have
difficulty in explaining how it happens, that
the moral culture of the most ancient nations
is more poetical, more favourable to the fine
arts, in a word, more nobly useless, in the
relations of materialism, than all the refine-
ments of modern civilization. The philo-
sophy of the Indians is ideal, and their reli-
gion mystical: certainly it is not the neces-
sity of maintaining order in society, which
has given birth to that philosophy, or to that
religion.
Poetry has almost every where existed
before prose; and the introduction of metres,
rhythm, and harmony, is anterior to the
rigorous precision, and consequently to the
useful employment of languages. Astronomy
has not been studied for the service of agri-
culture alone: but the Chaldeans, Egyp-
tians, &c. have carried their researches much
beyond the practical advantages which are
to be derived from it; and the love of heaven,
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? GERMAN PHILOSOPHERS. 125
and the worship of time, are supposed to
be shown in these profound and exact obser-
vations, respecting the divisions of the year,
the courses of the stars, and the periods of
their junction.
In China, the kings were the first astro-
nomers of their country. They passed nights
in contemplating the progress of the stars,
and their royal dignity consisted m those
exalted species of knowledge, and in those
disinterested occupations, which raised them
above the vulgar. The magnificent system,
which considers civilization as having for its
origin a religious revelation, is supported by
an erudition, of which the partisans of the
materialist doctrines are seldom capable: to
be wholly devoted to study, is to be almost
an idealist at once.
Men accustomed to deep and solitary
reflections, penetrate so forward into truth,
that, in my opinion, a man must be ignorant
or conceited to despise any of their writings,
without having long considered them. There
were formerly many errors and "supersti-
tions, which were attributable to want of
knowledge; but when, with the light of our
times, and the immense labours of indivi-
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? 126 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
duals, opinions are propounded which are
beyond the circle of our daily experience,
it is a cause of rejoicing to the human
race; for its actual treasures are very scanty,
at least if one may judge by the use
made of it.
In reading the account which I have
given of the principal ideas of some of the
German philosophers, on the one hand, their
partisans will discover, with reason, that I
have noticed, very superficially, researches
of great importance; and, on the other
hand, the world will ask, Of what use is all
this? But of what use are the Apollo Bel-
videre, the pictures of Raphael, the tragedies
of Racine? Of what use is every thing fine,
if not to the mind? It is the same with
philosophy; it is the beauty of tliought, it
attests the dignity of man, who is able to
occupy himself with what is external and
invisible, although the gross particles of his
nature would remove him from them.
I might cite many other names justly dis-
tinguished in the lists of philosophy; but it
appears to me, that this sketch, however
imperfect, is sufficient to serve as an intro-
duction to the examination of the influence
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? GERMAN PHILOSOPHERS. 137
which the transcendant philosophy of the
Germans has exercised over the develope-
ment of the mind, and over the character
and morality of the nation in which that
philosophy prevails; and that, above all, is
the object I propose to myself.
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? 102 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
easily drawn, when we renounce the highest
truths. Lessing's all-powerful polemics dis-
closed doubt upon the most important ques-
tions, and led to new inquiries of every kind.
Lessing himself cannot be considered either
as a materialist or as an idealist; but the
necessity of examination and study to
the acquisition of knowledge, was the main
spring of his doctrine. "If the Almighty/'
said he, " were to hold Truth in one hand,
"and the Search after truth in the other,
"it is the latter I should ask of him in pre-
"ference. "
Lessing was not orthodox in religion.
Christianity, in him, was not a necessary
thing, like sentiment; and yet he was ca-
pable of admiring it philosophically. He
understood its relations with the human
heart, and he ever considers all the different
ways of thinking, from a point of view,
where he is able to see them all. Nothing
intolerant, no exclusion, is to be found in
his writings. When we take our stand, in
the centre of universal ideas, we never
fail to have sincerity, depth, and extent of
mind. Whatever is unjust, vain, and nar-
row, is derived from the desire of refer-
ring every thing to certain partial views,
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? GERMAN PHILOSOPHERS. 10$
which we have taken and appropriated to
ourselves, and which we make the objects of
our self-love.
Lessing expresses, in an acute and plain
style, opinions full of warmth. Hemsterhuis,
a Dutch philosopher, was the first who, in
the middle of the eighteenth century, showed,
in his writings, the greater part of the liberal
ideas, upon which the new German school is
founded. His works are also very remark-
able, for the contrast which there is between
the character of his style, and the thoughts
which it conveys. Lessing is an enthusiast,
with an ironical manner; Hemsterhuis, an
enthusiast, with the language of a mathema-
tician. Writers who devote the most abstract
metaphysics to the defence of the most ex-
alted systems, and who conceal the liveliness
of imagination under the austerity of logic,
are a phenomenon which is scarcely to be
found, except amongst the German nations.
Men, who are always upon their guard
against imagination, when they have it not,
are more ready to trust those writers who
banish talent and sensibility from philoso-
phical discussions, as if it were not, at least,
as easy to be absurd, upon such subjects, in
syllogisms as with eloquence. For a syllo-
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? 104 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
gism, which always takes for its basis that
such a thing is or is not, reduces the im-
mense crowd of our impressions to a simple
alternative, in every case; whilst eloquence
embraces them all together. Nevertheless,
although Hemsterhuis has too frequently ex-
pressed philosophical truths,' in an algebraic
manner, there is a sentiment of morality, a
real love of the beautiful, in his writings,
which cannot but be admired; he was one of
the first to feel the union which exists be-
tween idealism, or (as I should rather say)
the free-will of man, and the stoic morality;
and it is in this point of view, above all, that
the new doctrine of the Germans is of great
importance.
Even before the writings of Kant had ap-
peared, Jacobi had attacked the philosophy
of sensation, and still more victoriously the
system of morality founded upon interest.
He flid not confine himself strictly, in his
philosophy, to abstract forms of reasoning.
His analysis of the human soul is full of elo-
quence and of charms. In the following
chapters, I shall examine the finest part of
his works, that which relates to morality;
but, as a philosopher, he deserves separate
honour. Better instructed than any one else
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? GERMAN PHILOSOPHERS. 105
in the history of ancient and modern philo-
sophy, he devoted his studies to the support
of the most simple truths. The first amongst
the philosophers of his day, he made religious
feeling the foundation of our whole intellec-
tual nature; and, it may be said, that he
has only learnt the language of metaphysi-
cians and learned men, to do homage, in it,
to virtue and divinity.
Jacobi has shown himself the opposer of
the philosophy of Kant, but he does not
attack it as if he was himself the partisan of
the philosophy of sensation *. On the con-
trary, his objection to Kant is, that he does
not rely sufficiently upon the support of re-
ligion, considered as the only possible phi-
losophy in those truths which are beyond the
reach of experience.
The doctrine of Kant has met with many
other opponents in Germany; but it has not
been attacked by those who have not under-
stood it, or by those who opposed the opi-
nions of Locke and Condillac, as a complete
answer to it. Leibnitz still retained too
great an ascendant over the minds of his
countrymen, for them not to pay respect to
* This philosophy has, in Germany, generally received
the name of The Empiric Philosophy.
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? 106 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
any opinion which was analogous to his. A
long list of writers have, for ten years, been
incessantly engaged in writing commentaries
on the works of Kant. But, at the present
day, the German philosophers, although
agreeing with Kant as to the spontaneous
activity of thought, have adopted each a
system of his own on that point. In fact,
who is there who has never endeavoured,
according to his abilities, to understand him-
self? But, because man has given an innu-
merable variety of explanations of his nature,
does it therefore follow that such a philoso-
phical examination is useless? Certainly not.
This variety itself is a proof of the interest
which such an examination ought to inspire.
In our days, people would be glad to have
done with moral nature, and would readily
pay its reckoning to hear no more of it.
Some say, the language was fixed on such a
day of such a month, and that, from that
moment, the introduction of a new word
became a barbarism; others affirm, that the
rules of the drama were definitely settled
in such a year (and it is a great pity that a
genius, which would now set about making
any change in them, was not born before
that year), in which every literary discus-
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? GERMAN PHILOSOPHER*. 107
sion, past, present, and future, was deter-
mined without appeal. At last, it has been
decided in metaphysics above all, that since
the days of Condillac it has been impossible
to take a single step more, without going
out of the way. It is allowed that the phy-
sical sciences are making progress, because it
cannot be denied; but, in the career of phi-
losophy and literature, the human mind is to
be obliged to be incessantly running the ring
of vanity around the same circle.
To remain attached to that experimental
philosophy which offers a species of evi-
dence, false in principle, although specious
in form, is by no means to simplify the sys-
tem of the universe. By considering every
thing as not existing which is beyond the
reach of our sensations, it is easy to give light
enough to a system, the limits of which we
ourselves prescribe; it is a work which de-
pends upon the doer of it. But does every
thing beyond those limits exist the less, be-
cause it is counted as nothing? The imper-
fect truth of speculative philosophy is ever
much nearer to the essence of things, than
that apparent light which belongs to the
art of solving difficulties of a certain order.
When one reads in the philosophical writings
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? 108 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
of the last century these phrases so frequently
repeated, this is all the truth that exists,
every thing else is chimerical, it puts one in
mind of the well-known story of a French
actor, who, before he would fight with a
man much fatter than himself, proposed to
chalk out on his adversary's body a line, the
hits on the outside of which should go for
nothing. Yet there was the same nature
without that line as within it, and equally
capable of receiving a mortal wound. In the
same manner, those who place the pillars of
Hercules on the boundary of their horizon,
cannot prevent the existence of a nature be-
yond their own, in which there exists a
higher degree of life, than in the sphere of
matter to which they would confine us.
TKe two most celebrated philosophers who
have succeeded Kant, are Fichte and Schel-
ling. They too pretended to simplify his
system; but it was by putting in its place a
species of philosophy more elevated even than
his, that they hoped to accomplish it.
Kant had, with a firm hand, separated the
two empires of the soul and of the senses.
This philosophical duality was fatiguing to
minds which love to repose in simple ideas.
From the days of the Greeks to our own*
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? GERMAN PHILOSOPHERS. 109
this axiom has often been repeated, that every
thing is one, and the efforts of philosophers
have always been directed to find in one
single principle, either in the soul or in na-
ture, an explanation of the world. I shall,
nevertheless, venture to sav, that it appears
to me to be one of the titles which Kant's
philosophy has to the confidence of enlight-
ened men, that it affirms, what we feel to be
the case, that there exists both a soul and an
external nature, and that they act mutually
one upon the other by such or such laws. I
know not why a greater degree of philoso-
phical elevation is to be found in the idea of
one single principle, whether material or in-
tellectual; . there being one, or two, does not
render the universe more easy of comprehen-
sion, and our feeling agrees better with those
systems that acknowledge a distinction be-
tween physics and morality.
Fichte and Schelling have divided between
them the empire which Kant acknowledged
to be a divided one, and each has chosen
that his own half should be the whole. Both
have gone out of the sphere of ourselves, and
have been desirous of rising to a knowledge
of the system of the universe. Very dif-
ferent in that from Kant, who has applied as
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? 110 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
much power of mind so show those things,
at the knowledge of which the human mind
can never arrive, as to explain those which
are within its reach.
No philosopher, however, before Fichte,
had extended the system of idealism with
such scientific strictness; he makes the whole
universe consist of the activity of mind. All
conception, all imagination, proceeds from
that; it is on account of this system that
he has been suspected of unbelief. He was
heard to say, that, in his next lesson, he
should create God, and the world was scan-
dalized with reason at such an expression. --
What he meant by it was, that he should
show how the idea of the Divinity arose, and
was developed in the mind of man. The
principal merit of Fichte's philosophy is, the
incredible attention that it implies; for he is
not contented with referring every thing to the
inward existence of man, to the self which
forms the basis of every thing, but he goes
on to distinguish in this self what is
transient and what is permanent. In fact,
when we reflect on the operations of the
understanding, we think ourselves eye-wit-
nesses of our own thoughts; we think we
see them pass before us like a stream,
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? GERMAN PHILOSOPHERS. Ill
whilst the portion of self, which is con-
templating them, is immoveable. It often
happens to those who unite an impassioned
character to an observing mind, to sec
themselves suffer, and to feel within them-
selves a being superior to its own pain,
which observes it, and reproves or pities it
by turns. ,
We are subject to continual changes from
the external circumstances of our life, and
yet we always have the feeling of our iden-
tity. What is it, then, that attests this
identity, if not that self ', always the same,
which sees another self, modified by im-
pressions from without, pass before its tri-
bunal?
It is to this immoveable soul, the witness
of the moveable soul, that Fichte attributes
the gift of immortality, and the power of
creating, or (to translate more exactly) of
drawing to a focus in itself the image of the
universe. This system, which makes every
thing rest on the summit of our existence,
and places a pyramid on its point, is . singu-
larly difficult to follow. It strips our ideas
of the colours which so well enable us to
understand them; and the fine arts, poetry,
and the contemplation of nature, disappear
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? 112 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
in abstractions which are without any mix-
ture of imagination or sensibility.
Fichte considers the exterior world only
as a boundary of our existence, on which
thought is at work. In his system, this
boundary is created by the soul itself, the
activity of which is constantly exerted on
the web it has formed. What Fichte has
written upon the metaphysical self', is a little
like the waking of Pygmalion's statue, which,
touching alternately itself and the stone on
which it was placed, says, by turns, This is I,
and This is not I; but when, taking the hand
of Pygmalion, it exclaims, This indeed is I--
that excites a sentiment which is much be-
yond the sphere of abstract ideas. Idealism,
stripped of sentiment, has nevertheless the
advantage of exciting, to the highest degree,
the activity of the mind; but nature and
love, by this system, lose all their charms;
for, if the objects which we see, and the
beings whom we love, are nothing but the
works of our own ideas, it is man himself
that may be considered as the great cceliba-
tary of the world.
It must be acknowledged, however, that
the system of Fichte has two great advan-
tages; the one is its stoic morality, which"
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? GERMAN PHILOSOPHERS. 113
admits of no excuses; for, every thing pro-
ceeding from self, it is self alone which has
to answer for the use it makes of the will:
the other is an exercise of thought, at once
so severe and so subtile, that a man who had
mastered the system, even though he should
not adopt it, would have acquired a capacity
of attention, and a sagacity in analysis, which
would afterwards make any other kind of
study a plaything to him.
In whatever manner the utility of meta-
physics is judged of, it cannot be denied, that
it is the gymnastic exercise of the mind. It
is usual to set children on different kinds of
wrestling in their earliest years, although it
may never be necessary for them to fight in
that manner. It may be truly said, that the
study of the "ideal system of metaphysics is
almost a certain means of developing the
moral faculties of those who devote them-
selves to it. Thought, like every thing pre-
cious, resides at the bottom of ourselves;
for, on the surface, there is nothing but folly
and insipidity. But when men are early
obliged to dive into their own minds, and to
see all that passes within them, they draw
from thence a power, and plainness of judg-
ment, which are never lost.
VOL. HI. I
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? 114 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
For abstract ideas, Fichte has a mathe-
matical head, like Euler or La Grange. He
has a singular contempt for all expressions
which in any manner relate to substance;
existence even is too common a word for him.
Being, principle, essence, are words scarcely
airy enough to mark the subtile shades in his
opinions. It might be said, that he was
afraid of coming in contact with realities,
and was always shrinking from them. In
reading his works, or conversing with him,
one loses the consciousness of this world,
and feels it necessary, like the ghosts de-
scribed by Homer, to recall to one's self the
remembrances of life.
Materialism absorbs the soul by degrading
it; the idealism of Fichte, by exalting it,
separates it from nature; in both extremes,
sentiment, which is the real beauty of exist-
ence, has not the rank it deserves.
Schejling has much more knowledge of
nature and the fine arts than Fichte, and his
lively imagination could not be satisfied with
abstract ideas; but, like Fichte, his object
is to reduce existence to a single principle.
He treats with profound contempt all philo-
sophers who admit two principles; and will
not allow the name of Philosophy to any
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? GERMAN PHILOSOPHERS. 115
system but that which unites every thing,
and explains every thing. Unquestionably
he is right in saying that system would be
the best; but where is it? Schelling pre-
tends, that nothing is more absurd than the
expression, so commonly used--the philoso-
phy of Tlaho -- the philosophy of Aristotle.
Should we say, The geometry of Euler--the
geometry of La Grange? There is but one,
philosophy, according to Schelling, or there
must be none at all. Certainly, if by phi-
losophy we only understand the enigma of
the universe, we may say, with truth, that
there is no philosophy.
The system of Kant appeared insufficient
to Schelling, as it did to Fichte; because he
acknowledges two natures, two sources of
our ideas--external objects, and the faculties
of the soul. But, in order to arrive at that
unity, so much desired; in order to get rid
of that double life, physical and moral, which
gives so much offence to the partisans of
simple ideas, Schelling refers every thing to
nature, while Fichte makes every thing spring
from the soul. Fichte sees nothing in nature
but the opposite of mind: in his eyes it is
only a limit or a chain, from which we are
constantly to endeavour to free ourselves.
i2
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? 116 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS. <
The system of Schelling gives more rest, and
greater delight, to the imagination; never-
theless it necessarily returns into that of
Spinosa; but, instead of sinking the mind
down to the level of matter, which is the
practice in our days, Schelling endeavours to
raise matter up to mind; and although
his theory entirely depends upon physical
nature, it is/ nevertheless, a very ideal one
at the bottom, and still more so in its form.
The ideal and the real supply, in his lan-
guage, the place of intelligence and matter,
of imagination and experience; and it is in
the re-union of these two powers in complete
harmony, that, in his opinion, the single
principle of the organized world consists.
This harmony, of which the two poles and
the centre form the image, and which is
comprised in the number three, so myste-
rious at all times, has supplied Schelling
with the most ingenious applications. He
believes it is to be found* in the fine arts, as
well as in nature; and his works on physical
science are thought highly of, even by those
learned men who confine themselves to the
consideration of facts, and their results. In-
deed, in examining the mind, he endeavours
to demonstrate how sensations and intel-
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? GERMAN PHILOSOPHERS. 117
lectual conceptions are confounded in the
sentiment which unites Avhatever is involun-
tary and reflective in both of them, and thus
contains all the myitery of life.
What is most interesting in these sys-
tems is their developements. The first basis
of the pretended explanation of the world
is equally true, and equally false, in the
. greater number of theories; for all of them
are comprised in the immense thought,
which it is their object to embrace: but,
in their application to the things of this
world, these theories are very refined, and
often throw great light on many particular
objects.
Schelling, it cannot be denied, approaches
nearly to the philosophers called Pantheists,
that is to say, who attribute to nature all the
attributes of the Divinity. But what dis-
tinguishes him is, the astonishing sagacity
with which he h^s managed to connect his
doctrine with the art? and sciences; he is
instructive, and requires thought, in all his
observations: and the depth of his mind is
particularly surprising when he does not pre-
tend to appljr it to the secret of the universe;
for no man can attain a superiority which
cannot exist between beings of the same
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? 118
PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
kind, at whatever distance they may be
placed from each other.
To kee|>> up the ideas of religion in the
midst of the apotheosis of nature, the school
of Schelling supposes that the individual
within us perishes, but that the inward
qualities which we possess, enter again into
the great whole of the eternal creation.
Such an immortality is terribly like death;
for physical death itself is nothing but
universal nature recalling to herself the gifts
she had given to the individual.
Schelling draws from his system some
very noble conclusions on the necessity of
cultivating in the soul its immortal qualities,
those which are in relation with the uni-
verse, and of despising every thing in us
which relates to our circumstances alone.
But are not the affections of the heart, and
even conscience itself, allied to the relations
of this life? In most situations we feel two
distinct motions--that which unites us with
the general order, and that which leads us to
our particular interests; the sentiment of
duty, and personality. The noblest of these
motions is the universal. But it is, exactly,
because we have an instinct which would
preserve our existence, that it is a fine thing
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? GERMAN PHILOSOPHERS. 119
to sacrifice that instinct; it is because we are
beings, whose centre is in ourselves, that
our attraction towards the assemblage of all
things is generous; in a word, it is because
we. exist individually and distinctly, that we
can choose out and love one another. What
then becomes of that abstract immortality
which would strip us of our dearest recollec-
tions as mere accidental modifications?
Would you, say they in Germany, rise again
in all your present circumstances ? --Would
you be revived a Baron, or a Marquis?
Certainly not. But who would not rise again
a mother or a daughter? and how could we
be ourselves again, if we had no longer the
same feelings of friendship? Vague ideas of
re-union with nature will, in time, destroy
the empire of religion over our souls; for re-
ligion is addressed to each of us individually.
Providence protects us in all the details of
our lot. Christianity is adapted to every
mind, and sympathizes, like a confidential
friend, with the wants of every heart.
Pantheism, on the contrary, that is, nature
deified, by inspiring religion for every thing,
disperses it over the world, instead of con-
centrating it in ourselves.
This system has at all times had many
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? 120 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
partisans amongst philosophers. Thought is
always tending, more and more, to gene-
ralization; and the labour of the mind, in
extending its boundaries, is often taken for
a new idea. We hope to arrive at a know-
ledge of the universe, as of space, by always
removing fences, and setting difficulties far-
ther from us without resolving them; and
yet we are no nearer to infinity. Sentiment
alone reveals it to us, without explaining it.
What is truly admirable in German philo-
sophy is the examination of ourselves to
which it leads; it ascends even to the origin
of the will, even to the unknown spring of
the course of our life; and then penetrating
the deepest secrets of grief, and of faith, it
enlightens and strengthens us. But all sys-
tems which aspire to the explanation of the
universe, can hardly be analysed with clear-
ness by any expressions: words are not
proper for ideas of this kind, and the con-
sequence is, that, in making use of them, ail
things are overshadowed by the darkness
which preceded the creation, not illuminated
by the light which succeeded it. Scientific
expressions, lavished on a subject in which
every one feels that he is interested, are re-
volting to self-love. These writings, so dif-
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? GERMAN PHILOSOPHERS. 121
ficult to comprehend, however serious one
may be, give occasion to pleasantry; for
mistakes are always made in the dark. It is
pleasing to reduce, to a few leading and
accessible assertions, that crowd of shades
and restrictions which appear quite sacred
to the author of them, but which the profane
soon forget or confound.
The Orientalists have at all times been
idealists, and Asia in no respect resembles
the south of Europe. The excessive heat
in those countries leads to contemplation, as
the excessive cold of the north does. The
religious systems of India . are very melan-
choly and spiritual, whilst the people of the
south of Europe have always had an inclina-
tion for rather a material kind of Paganism.
The learned of England, who have travelled
into India, have made deep researches about
Asia; and Germans who have not had oppor-
tunities, like the princes of the Ocean, to in-
form themselves with their own eyes, have,
by dint of study alone, arrived at very inte-
resting discoveries on the religion, the lite-
rature, the languages, of the Asiatic nations;
they have been led to think, from many in-
dications, that supernatural light once shone
upon the people of those countries, and that
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? 122 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
the traces of it still remain indelible. The
philosophy of the Indians can only be suffi-
ciently understood by the German idealists;
a similarity of opinion assists them in com-
prehending it.
Frederick Schlegel, not contented with the
knowledge of almost all the languages of
Europe, devoted unheard-of labours to ac-
quiring the knowledge of the country which
was the cradle of the world. The work
which he has just published on the language
and philosophy of the Indians, contains pro-
found views and real information worthy the
attention of enlightened men in Europe.
He thinks, and many philosophers (in the
number of whom Bailly may be reckoned)
have maintained the same opinion, that a
primitive people inhabited some parts of the
world, and particularly Asia, at a period an-
terior to all the documents of history. Fre-
derick Schlegel finds the traces of this people
in the intellectual advancements of nations,
and the formation of their languages. --
He observes a remarkable resemblance be-
tween the leading ideas, and even the words
which express them, amongst many nations
of the world, even when, so far as we are
informed by history, they have never bad any
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? GERMAN PHILOSOPHERS. 123
connexion with each other. Frederick
Schlegel does Hot adopt the very generally
received opinion,thatmen began inthesavage
state, and that their mutual wants, by degrees,
formed languages. Thus to attribute the
developement of the human mind and soul
to our animal nature, is to give it a very gross
origin, and Reason combats the hypothesis,
as much as Imagination rejects it.
We can hardly conceive by what grada-
tion it would be possible, from the cry of
the savage, to arrive at the perfection of the
Greek language; it would be said, that, in
the progress necessary to traverse such an
infinite distance, every step would: cross an
abyss; we see, in our days, that savages do
not civilize themselves, and that it is from
neighbouring nations that they are taught,
with great labour, what they themselves are
ignorant of. One is much tempted, there-
fore, to think, that a primitive nation did
establish the human race; and whence was
that people formed, if not from revelation?
All nations have, at all times, expressed regret
for the loss of a state of happiness which
preceded the period in which they existed:
whence arises this idea, so widely spread?
will it be said, it is an error? Errors that are
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? 124 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
universal are always founded upon some
truth, altered and disfigured perhaps, but
bottomed on facts concealed in the night of
ages, or some mysterious powers of nature.
Those who attribute the civilization of the
human race to the effects of physical wants
uniting men with one another, will have
difficulty in explaining how it happens, that
the moral culture of the most ancient nations
is more poetical, more favourable to the fine
arts, in a word, more nobly useless, in the
relations of materialism, than all the refine-
ments of modern civilization. The philo-
sophy of the Indians is ideal, and their reli-
gion mystical: certainly it is not the neces-
sity of maintaining order in society, which
has given birth to that philosophy, or to that
religion.
Poetry has almost every where existed
before prose; and the introduction of metres,
rhythm, and harmony, is anterior to the
rigorous precision, and consequently to the
useful employment of languages. Astronomy
has not been studied for the service of agri-
culture alone: but the Chaldeans, Egyp-
tians, &c. have carried their researches much
beyond the practical advantages which are
to be derived from it; and the love of heaven,
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? GERMAN PHILOSOPHERS. 125
and the worship of time, are supposed to
be shown in these profound and exact obser-
vations, respecting the divisions of the year,
the courses of the stars, and the periods of
their junction.
In China, the kings were the first astro-
nomers of their country. They passed nights
in contemplating the progress of the stars,
and their royal dignity consisted m those
exalted species of knowledge, and in those
disinterested occupations, which raised them
above the vulgar. The magnificent system,
which considers civilization as having for its
origin a religious revelation, is supported by
an erudition, of which the partisans of the
materialist doctrines are seldom capable: to
be wholly devoted to study, is to be almost
an idealist at once.
Men accustomed to deep and solitary
reflections, penetrate so forward into truth,
that, in my opinion, a man must be ignorant
or conceited to despise any of their writings,
without having long considered them. There
were formerly many errors and "supersti-
tions, which were attributable to want of
knowledge; but when, with the light of our
times, and the immense labours of indivi-
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? 126 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
duals, opinions are propounded which are
beyond the circle of our daily experience,
it is a cause of rejoicing to the human
race; for its actual treasures are very scanty,
at least if one may judge by the use
made of it.
In reading the account which I have
given of the principal ideas of some of the
German philosophers, on the one hand, their
partisans will discover, with reason, that I
have noticed, very superficially, researches
of great importance; and, on the other
hand, the world will ask, Of what use is all
this? But of what use are the Apollo Bel-
videre, the pictures of Raphael, the tragedies
of Racine? Of what use is every thing fine,
if not to the mind? It is the same with
philosophy; it is the beauty of tliought, it
attests the dignity of man, who is able to
occupy himself with what is external and
invisible, although the gross particles of his
nature would remove him from them.
I might cite many other names justly dis-
tinguished in the lists of philosophy; but it
appears to me, that this sketch, however
imperfect, is sufficient to serve as an intro-
duction to the examination of the influence
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? GERMAN PHILOSOPHERS. 137
which the transcendant philosophy of the
Germans has exercised over the develope-
ment of the mind, and over the character
and morality of the nation in which that
philosophy prevails; and that, above all, is
the object I propose to myself.
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