No More Learning

The problems of life could
all be solved without delay.
These views aroused unbounded enthusiasm. The Germans call
this epoch the "Aufklärung" (Enlightenment). It was a clearing-up
such as comes from cutting loose from the past, with a consciousness
that the individual commences a new book, with new ideas and with


## p. 7163 (#565) ###########################################

GEORGE WILLIAM FREDERICK HEGEL
7163
Hegel
no responsibilities to anything that has been written before.
had been much interested in Rousseau in his youth, and en the
French Revolution came to be discussed all over Europe, he like
most young men of his time adopted the gospel of liberty, equality,
and fraternity as his own. He and Schelling took an active part in
a political club founded for the dissemination of French ideas at the
university. In the course of a few years, however, he discovered the
shallowness of a movement which claims as its chief merit the neg-
lect of the past and the wholesale condemnation of existing institu-
tions. According to the principle of the French Revolution, no sooner
has something become an accomplished fact than it becomes a men-
ace to the freedom of the individual; it becomes tyrannical with its
authority. Hence, no sooner did the Revolution make a new consti-
tution than it began to amend it; for how could the people retain
their consciousness of freedom from authority unless they continually
recast their constitutional law? This lesson of the French Revolution
made the profoundest impression upon the mind of Hegel, given as
he was to looking behind the immediate appearance to the essential
form of the deed. He saw at once the irrationality of the Revolution,
and compared it to Saturn, who devoured his own offspring. He saw
vividly the absurdity of constitutional conventions which are to dis-
cover and adopt reasonable foundations, to be followed immediately
by new conventions which demolish the reasonable forms adopted by
their predecess
ssors. Hegel became conscious of the truth of the con-
servative principle which aims to build the present upon the past,
and to reinforce the insight of the present moment by the reflections
of all the rational hours that have gone before. This conservatism,
which appears in all of the works of Hegel, has been much con-
demned. It should be remembered that Hegel did not begin to write
books until he had reached this conclusion.
After two or three years' companionship with Schelling, Hegel,
having completed his theological studies at the university, left Jena
and became a private tutor in a family in Berne. It is interesting to
note that Fichte had held the position of tutor in Switzerland shortly
before this, and Herbart a similar position about the same time.
The three years of tutorship passed in studies on the most difficult
problems of all philosophies; namely, the reconciliation of the theo-
retical and practical sides of life the relation of intellect to will.
At this time, too, Hegel made a more thorough study of the Kantian
critiques, and took up Fichte's Science of Knowledge,' finding it far
more difficult to master than the Critique of Pure Reason. ' He
obtained, however, some assistance from Schelling in gaining an
insight into the subtle psychology of Fichte. For Schelling had
found the writings of Fichte more to his taste than those of any
―――


## p. 7164 (#566) ###########################################

7164
GEORGE WILLIAM FREDERICK HEGEL
other philosopher; and just as Fichte had been nurtured on the writ-
ings of Kant, the ideas of which he had proceeded at once to com-
bine in a new system, so Schelling recast in a new form the ideas of
Fichte. He hastened to construe the world of nature, a priori, by
means of transcendental ideas. Self-consciousness revealed the hidden
laws and principles implicit in ordinary knowing; and these laws and
principles, discovered in the unconscious activity of the mind, were
identified by him with the moving forces of nature. He attributed
them to "an impersonal reason, a soul of the world. " Thus it comes
to pass that while Fichte laid the greatest stress on the subjective,
the will of the individual, the consciousness of the particular person,
- that is to say, on the free moral will,- Schelling on the other
hand emphasized the objective, the unconscious development of nature,
and laid great stress on the gradual unfolding of reason in the inor-
ganic world of matter. There was no necessary incongruity in the
two systems. But the one-sidedness due to the intense emphasis
given to the opposite poles soon produced a conflict. Fichte subor-
dinated everything else to the moral will, and regarded nature as
merely phenomenal and scarcely worthy of man's attention.
ling, on the other hand, turned to nature and history as unconscious
realizations of spirit in time and space, and held them up to view as
worthy of all study. They were treated in his philosophy with rever-
ence as Divine incarnations. Fichte slighted time and space, and
what they contained. He neglected the forms of matter and the
results of history,— everything conventional, such as institutions, cus-
toms, and philosophical systems. The world, in short, was treated
somewhat as the French revolutionists treated the past. Schelling,
on the other hand, looked upon the world as a revelation of the abso-
lute, and held it sacred, while subjectivity (the ego and its interests)
became less important in his eyes; and as a consequence, human aims
and endeavors, even moral aims, lost their interest to him. Not so
however with Hegel. Hegel did not for a moment, while he called
himself a disciple of Schelling, fail to see that the moral world is
more important than the physical world; although he believed the
physical world to be what Schelling claimed for it.
In the midst of these great philosophical movements, Hegel had
(in 1797) become a tutor in Frankfort, and had reinforced his insights
obtained through the study of Fichte and the explanations of Schel-
ling, by a study of Plato and Sextus Empiricus the skeptic. What
was most important, he began to get a new insight into the dialectic
which Fichte had set forth in his 'Science of Knowledge' as the
strictly scientific form of expounding philosophy. He saw how, in
the hands of Plato and Sextus, the negative plays the moving part
in developing thought and correcting its imperfections. Hegel later


## p. 7165 (#567) ###########################################

GEORGE WILLIAM FREDERICK HEGEL
7165
conceived the idea of uniting the Platonic dialectic with the Fichtean,
and completing an objective dialectic which he hoped to make of
great service in rational psychology, or logic as he called it.
In 1801 he returned to Jena, which had become not only a great
centre of literary activity but the chief centre of philosophic activity
in the world. Fichte had been charged with atheism, had resigned,
and gone to Berlin. Schelling was then lecturing at Jena as pro-
fessor extraordinarius. Hegel commenced to teach logic, metaphysics,
the philosophy of nature, and the philosophy of spirit. In 1805 he
lectured on the history of philosophy, pure metaphysics, and natural
right; in 1806 on the unity of philosophical systems. He began in
this year to unfold what he called the phenomenology of spirit; by
which he meant an exposition of the dialectic by which one's view
of the world changes from that of the earliest infancy up to the most
complete view to be found in the philosophy and religion of his
civilization. He showed how the barest fragments are seized at first
as if they were the truth of the whole world; next how these frag-
ments are supplemented and enlarged by further insight, obtained by
noticing their dependence on other things and their utter insufficiency
by themselves. This work, The Phenomenology of Spirit,' published
in 1807, remains the most noteworthy exposition of what Hegel calls
his dialectic; although in some respects it is amended and made
more complete in his larger 'Logic,' published in three volumes,
1812 to 1816.
But in 1803 Hegel had begun to be aware of a growing separation
between his view of the world and that of Schelling. He had been
substantially at one with Schelling so long as Schelling held the
doctrine that reason, or intelligence and will, is the absolute. This
was Schelling's view up to 1801. At that time the idea of polarity
became very attractive to him. The phenomenon of the magnet had
suggested a symbol by which he could explain human consciousness
and the world. We, the conscious human beings, represent one pole
of being, the subjective pole; while nature, in time and space, repre-
sents the other pole, the objective pole of being. Just as the indif-
ference-point unites the two poles in one magnet, so there is the
absolute, which is the indifference-point between the subjective and
objective poles of being; namely, between mind and nature: and of
course this indifference-point is neither mind nor nature, but a higher
principle uniting mind and nature. At this point Schelling very dis-
tinctly abandoned the current of European thought from Plato to
Fichte, and adopted the Oriental standpoint, as revealed in Hindoo
philosophy and in the philosophy of the Gnostics and Neo-Platonists.
It was a lapse into Orientalism, and if carried out would end in
agnosticism, or in the doctrine of the incomprehensibility of the


## p. 7166 (#568) ###########################################

7166
GEORGE WILLIAM FREDERICK HEGEL
absolute. Another of its consequences would be the impossibility of
recognizing morals or ethics in the Divine. Since the absolute would
transcend the subjective as well as the objective, it would be some-
thing above morals, and consequently it could not be said to have
self-activity. Hegel never for one moment assented to this view, but
remained standing by the former attitude of Schelling, making the
absolute to be, not an indifference-point, but the perfection of the
subjective and objective as a reason whose will is creative, or a rea-
son whose intellect, in the act of knowing, also creates. After 1803,
Schelling ought to have seen that his new principle undermined the
very possibility of philosophy, and he should have ceased philoso-
phizing; for his absolute, as the indifference-point between reason
and nature, proved only an empty unity which did not explain the
origin of the polarity from it. The worlds of mind and nature could
not be anything but illusions, the Maya of the East-Indian thinking.
On the other hand, an absolute of reason could explain the rise of
antithesis, and could explain also the world of unconscious nature as
a progressive development of individuality—a sort of cradle for the
development of immortal souls. But Hegel, even in his lectures on
the history of philosophy nearly twenty years later, seems to take
pleasure in recognizing Schelling as his master. He does not expound
the final system as his own, but adopts the philosophy of Schelling
as the last contribution to the History of Philosophy. '
It may be of interest to remark here, that although Schelling con-
tinued to produce new developments in philosophy which undermined
the systems which he had built up before, yet there are two import-
ant and permanent interests advanced by his philosophizing. The
first of these has been mentioned. Instead of leaving nature as a
thing in itself, outside of and beyond all mind, Schelling recognizes
in it a genuine objective and independent development of reason,
fundamentally identical with mind. Human reason is reflected in the
forms of nature. This view brings one to see that the goal at which
the human soul has arrived, or is arriving, is confirmed or approved
by the great process of struggle for existence which is called nature.
"Mind sleeps in matter, dreams in the plant, awakes in the animal,
and becomes conscious in man. "
Still more important is the effort of Schelling to understand the
great systems of thought made by preceding thinkers-his study of
Giordano Bruno, and his interpretation of mythology. He success-
ively appropriated the standpoints of Kant, Fichte, Bruno, Spinoza,
Baader, and Boehme. His fertile mind threw great light on the posi
tive meaning contained in each of these systems of thought. He
became the best of commentators. He showed how a history of phi-
losophy should be written, not after the style of Mr. Lewes, who


## p. 7167 (#569) ###########################################

GEORGE WILLIAM FREDERICK HEGEL
7167
writes the biography of defunct philosophy, but a history that shows
the great insights which formed the life of these systems. Schelling
had discovered the vital basis for a history of philosophy that should
interpret the different systems of thought that had prevailed.
Hegel perhaps learned his most important lesson from Schelling
in this matter of the interpretation of systems of thought; and cer-
tainly Hegel shines best in writing the History of Philosophy,'
always being able to penetrate behind the words and seize the essen-
tial ideas which lived in the mind of the past thinker. Oftentimes
this idea was merely struggling for utterance, and not wholly articu-
late. This does not prevent Hegel from seizing the idea itself, and
setting it forth with success.
The gross outcome of Hegel's philosophy. is, in fact,- next after
his insight into the defect of Oriental thought,- his ability to seize
the thought of Plato and Aristotle, and prove its identity with the
thought of Kant, Fichte, and Schelling. The easiest method by which
the student may arrive at the great thoughts of Plato and Aristotle
is to read in Hegel's History of Philosophy' his exposition of Socra-
tes and his followers. Hegel's high place is due to his able inter-
pretation of the speculative insights of the great systems of thought
which had prevailed in the world for twenty centuries, and on which,
in a sense, the institutions of modern civilization had been built. The
old philosophy had been so diluted, in making it a book of instruc-
tion for students and immature persons, that the insight into its
speculative necessity had been lost or become a tradition. The pro-
fessor is obliged to keep in mind the capacity of the pupil, in pre-
paring his text-book. In striving to make the subject clear to the
immature mind, which is not able to think except in images and
pictures, the professor changes his attitude from that of a discoverer
of truth to that of an expounder of truth. He is obliged to suppress
the strictly logical deduction, and substitute for it analogies and illus-
trations that flow from it; thus, to offer baked bread instead of seed
corn to his pupils. But by-and-by his pupils, nurtured on this thin
philosophical diet, become professors themselves. They have never
heard that Plato and Aristotle ever had any other meaning than the
commonplace doctrines learned in their text-books. Hence the de-
generacy of philosophy in the schools. On the other hand, eccentric
philosophers off the lines of the traditional school wisdom, like Bruno,
Spinoza, Boehme, and Swedenborg, have never been reduced to a text-
book form, and they still preserve a power to arouse original thought.
Schelling's writings have this power. They reveal the morning red
of truth, and the student becomes a mystic and beholds the truth for
himself. But it does not often occur to him that there is also clear
daylight behind the commonplace dogmas of school wisdom.


## p. 7168 (#570) ###########################################

7168
GEORGE WILLIAM FREDERICK HEGEL
Hegel profited more by the example of Schelling in this matter
of interpreting the past systems of philosophy, than by anything else.
He became the great philosophical interpreter.
I have already mentioned his first original work, the 'Phenome-
nology of Spirit,' a book that he finished during the battle of Jena
(1806). It appeared from the press in the following year. This work
may be best described as an interpretation of the different stand-
points at which the mind arrives, successively, on its way from the
mere animal sense-perception up to the highest stage of thinking,
which sees the world to be a manifestation of Divine reason, and
reads its purpose in everything. One must not, however, understand
this book to be an attempt to present the contents of the world of
nature and of human history in a systematic form, for it is nothing
of the kind. It is rather a subjective clearing-up of the contents of
his own mind than an objective treatment of the contents of the
world, systematically. But the first part of it has something of
a very general character; namely, the exhibition of the dialectic
by which sense-perception passes from an immediate knowledge of
the here and now, to a knowledge of force, and further on, to the
insight that force must in all cases be a fragment of will-activity.
This part of the track of development must be common to all peo-
ples who have progressed up to, and beyond, the dynamic view of
the world. And again, in the next phase of it, where he develops
in order, one after the other, the germs of the several institutions of
the social life of man; namely, beginning with slavery, on through
the patriarchal despotism, up to free, constitutional forms of govern-
ment. He shows the rise of the moral idea, first in the mind of the
slave who, purified by his own sufferings, learns to see the import-
ance of moral conduct on the part of his master, not only for his
own (the slave's) well-being, but also for the accomplishment of any-
thing reasonable by his master himself. This deep insight is a key
to the explanation of the authorship of Æsop's Fables, the Enchiridion
of Epictetus, and the Hitopadesa, by slaves. In general, it explains
how it is that in Asia, in the realm of arbitrary power and despot-
ism, the moral systems of the world have arisen. It does not indicate
any lofty superiority on the part of the Asiatic mind, but rather its
backwardness in developing civil institutions such as we enjoy in
the Roman law, the English local self-government, and the American
Constitution. Hegel uses this key, not only to explain the history and
arrested development of civilization among the Oriental peoples, but
to explain the moral ideas of the Stoics, the Skeptics, and the Epi-
cureans.
The first part of the Phenomenology treats of consciousness, the
second part of self-consciousness, or the arrival at the certainty that


## p. 7169 (#571) ###########################################

GEORGE WILLIAM FREDERICK HEGEL
7169
a self is behind every total phenomenon, and that the self is an in-
dependent, originating being, and therefore morally responsible. He
shows how this idea prompts man to a study of nature, with a view
to understand how nature is a manifestation or revelation of mind.
This is the third study of the Phenomenology under the general title
of reason.
«
In Hegel's technique, reason" means the recognition of
mind as the outcome of the world-process. Absolute reason is creat-
ing individual beings, and endowing them with reason. The world
of nature and human history is a process whose object is the develop-
ment of individuality. Side by side with this theoretical or intellect-
ual side of the recognition of reason, Hegel places the actual struggle
of the will, and traces its ascent from mere caprice, up to the con-
sciousness of laws and obedience to them.
The fourth step of the Phenomenology he calls "spirit. " It is the
consciousness that makes institutions for the establishment and pres-
ervation of what is rational in the world. According to Hegel, rea-
son includes the discovery of rational laws in nature and rational
laws in human history and development; but in all this the individual
acts as individual, and his seeing and knowing is individual. Spirit
names the product of society, and not of the mere individual. In
social combinations, according to Hegel, there is a higher manifesta-
tion of intelligence and will than in the mere individual, and he calls
this manifestation "spirit. " Spirit is therefore man acting as a social
whole. His insight into this is used as a key to explain the phe-
nomena of his own time, particularly the French Revolution, in its
entire cycle from revolt against the State to a restoration of the State
under Napoleon.
He closes his Phenomenology by a brief study into the nature of
religion. He commences with the lowest forms of fetishism and
idolatry, and rising through the art religion of the Greeks, comes to
a third and highest religion, revealed religion; signifying by the word
"revealed," not so much that the Scriptures are divinely inspired, as
that they make known a God who reveals himself to men,—not an
inscrutable God, like that of the pantheistic religions, but a Divine-
human God, an absolute, conscious reason, and above all, a moral
God. For Hegel finds that the Hebrew insight in the Old Testament
reaches to such a knowledge of the absolute as is presupposed by
psychology, by the philosophy of nature, and by the philosophy of
history. It was reached by the intuition of that wonderful people in
Palestine.
Of many things man may be uncertain, but he can be absolutely
certain that the fundamental Being in the universe must respect the
moral law, otherwise he would destroy his own personality. Hav-
ing convinced himself of this, Hegel has arrived at his final chapter,
XII-449


## p. 7170 (#572) ###########################################

7170
GEORGE WILLIAM FREDERICK HEGEL
absolutely knowing, and his "voyage of discovery" is done. He is
certain that there must be absolute science, because the highest of
religions presupposes this knowledge that the Divine being is ethical,
and necessarily possesses goodness and righteousness. Now Hegel is
ready to commence on his next work, the Logic, which will show
how the mind reaches the moral ideal. It is a thorough explora-
tion of the thoughts of the mind which arise in it through its own
activity, and not through mere experience. The category of being,
for instance, is a category that underlies all experience, and it re-
mains in the mind after having abstracted all that one has learned
through each and all his special senses; for all things learned by
experience are really qualities of being, but not being itself.
the categories of negation and of becoming. Such categories as
"somewhat," and "other," and "limit," "the finite," "the infinite,"
and all the other categories of quality; such categories as "quantity,"
"extensive" and "intensive," and "ratio,”—all these categories of
quality and quantity form a sort of surface to the thinking mind.
Underneath this it thinks categories of "phenomenon and noume-
non," categories of "positive and negative," "identity and difference,
"force and manifestation," "substance and attribute,» « cause and
effect," in short, the world of relativity.
Hegel goes on in his Logic to discuss - besides these categories
of quality and quantity which belong to immediate being, and which
constitute our superficial or surface thinking-the categories of es-
sence, such as cause and effect, which are the chief categories of
reflection, or the understanding; and finally comes to a third realm
of thinking, which deals with life and mind, showing up the laws of
the judgment and syllogism as found in Aristotle's Logic, and work-
ing out, along lines that Schelling first explored, into the realization of
mind in the mechanism, chemism, and teleology of the world; finally
considering the life of animal and plant, and then intellect and will
of man, and lastly the union of intellect and will in one being,- the
being of God, or as Hegel calls it, the "absolute idea. " This abso-
lute idea has the form of perfectly altruistic action. Its Divine occu-
pation is the creating of other beings, and the nurturing of the same
up to their immortal individuality.
With the appearance of conscious self-determination in the world,
there begins responsibility, and consequently conscious discrimination
between evil and righteousness. The institutions of civilization arise
in order to conserve the conscious practice of the right and the sup-
pression of evil.
In this his first work, the
Phenomenology,' we find the keys
which Hegel applies to the several departments of philosophy; his
work after 1807 lay in the lines therein mapped out. While in charge


## p. 7171 (#573) ###########################################

GEORGE WILLIAM FREDERICK HEGEL
7171
of a classical high school in Nuremberg, he elaborated and published
his 'Science of Logic,' in three volumes (1812 to 1816). The outline
of the Philosophy of Nature' he published in his Encyclopædia of
Philosophical Sciences' in 1817 at Heidelberg, whither he had gone.
in October 1816 to assume a professorship in the University. The
first volume of the Encyclopædia' contains a compend of his logic,
and the third volume contains the 'Philosophy of Spirit,' which is
mostly a systematic arrangement of materials to be found in his
"Phenomenology. '
In October 1818 Hegel became a professor in the University of
Berlin, occupying the chair formerly occupied by Fichte. In his Ber-
lin period he elaborated the details of the Philosophy of Spirit,' and
expanded its contents into a large number of volumes. In 1821 he
published his Philosophy of Right,' containing the science of juris-
prudence, morals, and politics. In the following years he lectured on
the philosophy of history, on the science of the fine arts and poetry,
on the philosophy of religion, and on the history of philosophy.
His manuscripts were edited by his disciples after his death, additions
being made to the manuscripts from the notes of the pupils taken
during the lectures. While engaged on a new edition of his complete
Logic, having finished the revision of the first volume, he died of
cholera, November 14th, 1831.
The edition of his complete works by his disciples contains in
Vol. i. his writings of the Schelling period; Vol. ii. , Phenomenology
of Spirit'; Vols. iii. , iv. , and v. , Science of Logic'; 'Outlines of the
Philosophy of Right' (one volume), Philosophy of History' (one vol-
ume), Esthetics,' including the Philosophy of the Fine Arts and
Poetry (three volumes), Philosophy of Religion' (two volumes),
"History of Philosophy' (three volumes), the Encyclopædia' (three
volumes), Miscellaneous Writings' (two volumes). To this list should
be added the Life of Hegel' by Rosenkranz (one volume). English
translations now exist of the Philosophy of History,' the Encyclo-
pædia,' the Philosophy of Right,' the Philosophy of Religion,' the
'History of Philosophy,' and a considerable portion of the 'Esthetics. '
<
Of these works, the Philosophy of Right' gives by far the best
philosophy of the family, industrial society, political economy, and
the State, that has been produced by the Kantian critical school. It
contains a brief but very luminous treatise on the science of morals
as distinct from ethics in general, which Hegel construes as the
science of institutions. Hegel's 'Philosophy of Esthetics,' including
the fine arts and poetry, treats of the three epochs of art, symbolic
(Oriental), classic (Greek and Roman), and romantic (Christian), as
well as the special arts, architecture, sculpture, painting, music, and
poetry. It shows, in accordance with broad principles, how the ideal


## p. 7172 (#574) ###########################################

7172
GEORGE WILLIAM FREDERICK HEGEL
of the beautiful is realized within the three great epochs of civiliza.
tion; and gives the student a philosophical basis by which to criticize
the merits and defects of each phase of art. It shows also the ad-
vantages and the defects of each of the special arts in revealing the
beautiful; architecture having one kind of limitation, sculpture another,
painting, music, and poetry still others. If Hegel had left us only
this work on the philosophy of art, says Bénard, it would have been
sufficient to give him first rank among the thinkers of his century.
But this may be truthfully said of four of his other works.
His 'Philosophy of Religion' commences with a discussion of the
nature of religion, defining its limitations and showing its central
value. The first part of his 'Philosophy of Art,' in the same way,
shows the nature of art and its significance. The Philosophy of
Religion' then proceeds to take up historically the religions of the
chief nations, showing the Church from its earliest beginnings to its
culmination in Christianity. The Philosophy of History' is the cen-
tral book of this group. It takes up the nations of the world, and
analyzes the fundamental idea of the civilization of each; then shows
how this idea gets realized in the manners and customs of the peo-
ple, and especially in their governmental form. He then shows how
the colliding elements of this great idea get reconciled and harmo-
nized within the nation itself; and then how it comes into collision
with nations outside of it; and finally how it is overcome by the
world-historical nation which is to become its successor as leader in
civilization. The works on æsthetics and religion reinforce the
'Philosophy of History' by showing how the national idea gets real-
ized in the art and literature of the people, and also in its religious
creed and methods of worship. It seems to be a tacit conviction of
Hegel that in order to seize the truth of the individuality of a nation,
and understand its career in the world, you must investigate not only
its form of government and its manners and customs, but also its
view of the world as found in religion, and its celebration of that
view of the world, in architecture, sculpture, painting, music, and
poetry. A mistake in any one of these spheres would get corrected
while investigating other spheres.
Hegel's 'History of Philosophy' is the most remarkable work of
its kind, inasmuch as it has the advantage of the wonderful interpret-
ing power of the master. His pupils have numerously attempted
writings in the history of philosophy, and have made great success in
it, but no success equal to that of Hegel himself. His work is pro-
foundly suggestive. He studies the thought of a nation always in
the light of its institutions, its art, its literature, and its religion. By
his very method he is protected against attributing to thinkers ideas
which could not have arisen in their historical epoch. Hegel has


## p. 7173 (#575) ###########################################

GEORGE WILLIAM FREDERICK HEGEL
7173
done more than any other thinker to give the student what is called
a historical sense, and thus guard him against misinterpreting the
earlier forms of ideas for later ones.
In each of these works, which stand for the four greatest contri-
butions to human thought in this century,- Hegel's treatises on art,
religion, history, and philosophy, - the great contrast between Asiatic
contributions and those of Europe is brought out with ever-fresh
illustrations and profound suggestions.
The difference of these two
epochs of human history is shown to be the deepest possible. The
Oriental thought is not strong enough in its synthetic power to grasp
the idea of an absolute, as an ethical personality, but remains stand-
ing at the idea of an empty infinite, devoid of all attributes. This
impotency it illustrates in its works of art, its forms of civil govern-
ment, its religious creeds, and its philosophy. The correspondence
between the abstract theories of a civilization and its concrete results
is worked out by Hegel so felicitously as to awaken the highest en-
thusiasm in the intelligent reader.
W. Dans
SELECTIONS FROM HEGEL'S WRITINGS
THE
HE following extracts from English translations from Hegel will
serve to illustrate his difficulties of style, which appear through
a translation somewhat exaggerated on account of the impossi-
bility of rendering his technical terms into corresponding terms in
English. His writings are built up systematically, and somewhere in
his works each technical term will be found to be explained fully;
but unfortunately for his readers, he uses these terms anywhere in
their full technical significance, assuming that the reader is acquainted
with the detailed exposition which he has given somewhere else.
Such simple words as "reason," "spirit," "self-consciousness," are
used as glibly as if they meant only the ordinary mental pictures
called up by the reading public at sight of these words. But we
have seen that "spirit" implies an investigation occupying five or six
hundred pages in that most abstruse and exasperating work The
Phenomenology of Spirit. ' (1) It implies the psychological demon-
stration that self-activity is the true first principle, presupposed not
only as the basis of all life but as the basis of all inorganic nature.
(This is the step called "self-consciousness. ") (2) It presupposes the


## p. 7174 (#576) ###########################################

GEORGE WILLIAM FREDERICK HEGEL
7174
long investigation through experience of untold centuries into the
objects of nature, discovering finally their purpose in creation; and
the other phase of investigation into the action of the human will,
by which it arrives at moral and ethical forms of action. (This is
the process called "reason. ") (3) Finally, it presupposes a like inves-
tigation on the part of human experience into institutions best calcu-
lated to realize human nature, the family, civil society, the State and
the Church. (This process is called "spirit. ")
This style resembles in some degree that of treatises in higher
mathematics, wherein a simple formula of two or three terms quotes
a result which has been arrived at after one or two hundred pages
of close analytical reasoning.
In the following extracts I preface each by a brief explanation
indicating the general result, and calling attention to some of the
technical terms which contain the compendious reference here de-
scribed.
W. T. H.
TRANSITION TO THE GREEK WORLD
From the Philosophy of History
[The following passage, on the transition from the history of Egypt to
that of Greece, shows how a national consciousness which expresses itself
only in symbols passes over to one that expresses itself in the language of
thought. ]
THE
HE Egyptian Spirit has shown itself to us as in all respects
shut up within the limits of particular conceptions, and
as it were, imbruted in them; but likewise stirring itself
within these limits,-passing restlessly from one particular form
into another. This Spirit never rises to the Universal and
Higher, for it seems to be blind to that; nor does it ever with-
draw into itself: yet it symbolizes freely and boldly with partic
ular existence, and has already mastered it. All that is now
required is to posit that particular existence- which contains the
germ of ideality—as ideal, and to comprehend Universality itself,
which is already potentially liberated from the particulars involv
ing it. It is the free, joyful Spirit of Greece that accomplishes
this, and makes this its starting-point. An Egyptian priest is
reported to have said that the Greeks remain eternally children.
We may say on the contrary that the Egyptians are vigorous
boys, eager for self-comprehension, who require nothing but clear
understanding of themselves in an ideal form in order to become


## p. 7175 (#577) ###########################################

GEORGE WILLIAM FREDERICK HEGEL
7175
Young Men. In the Oriental Spirit there remains as a basis
the massive substantiality of Spirit immersed in Nature. To the
Egyptian Spirit it has become impossible-though it is still in-
volved in infinite embarrassment-to remain contented with that.
The rugged African nature disintegrated that primitive Unity, and
lighted upon the problem whose solution is Free Spirit.
THE PROBLEM
From the Philosophy of History>
[Hegel uses with great effect a quotation from a Neo-Platonist philosopher
who used the clear thoughts of Aristotle and Plato to explain the symbolic
consciousness of the Greeks. ]
THA
HAT the Spirit of the Egyptians presented itself to their con-
sciousness in the form of a problem, is evident from the
celebrated inscription in the sanctuary of the Goddess Neith
at Sais: "I am that which is, that which was, and that which
will be no one has lifted my veil. " This inscription indicates the
principle of the Egyptian Spirit; though the opinion has often
been entertained, that its purport applies to all times. Proclus
supplies the addition, "The fruit which I have produced is Helios. "
That which is clear to itself is therefore the result of, and the
solution of, the problem in question. This lucidity is Spirit —
the Son of Neith the concealed night-loving divinity. In the
Egyptian Neith, Truth is still a problem. The Greek Apollo
is its solution; his utterance is: "Man, know thyself. " In this
dictum is not intended a self-recognition that regards the special-
ties of one's own weaknesses and defects: it is not the individual
that is admonished to become acquainted with his idiosyncrasy,
but humanity in general is summoned to self-knowledge. This
mandate was given for the Greeks; and in the Greek Spirit,
humanity exhibits itself in its clear and developed condition.
Wonderfully, then, must the Greek legend surprise us, which
relates that the Sphinx- the great Egyptian symbol-appeared
in Thebes, uttering the words: "What is that which in the morn-
ing goes on four legs, at midday on two, and in the evening
on three? " Edipus, giving the solution Man, precipitated the
Sphinx from the rock. The solution and liberation of that Ori-
ental Spirit, which in Egypt had advanced so far as to propose
the problem, is certainly this: that the Inner Being (the Essence)


## p. 7176 (#578) ###########################################

7176
GEORGE WILLIAM FREDERICK HEGEL
of Nature is Thought, which has its existence only in the human
consciousness. But that time-honored antique solution given by
Edipus - who thus shows himself possessed of knowledge-is
connected with a dire ignorance of the character of his own
actions. The rise of spiritual illumination in the old royal house
is disparaged by connection with abominations, the result of ignor-
ance; and that primeval royalty must-in order to attain true
knowledge and moral clearness-first be brought into shapely
form, and be harmonized with the Spirit of the Beautiful, by
civil laws and political freedom.
THE GREEK WORLD
From the Philosophy of History'
[In explaining the general characteristics of the Greek national mind,
Hegel calls attention to the fact that Greek civilization is the first appearance
of "spirit" in the world, using the word in the technical sense above described;
namely, that it is the first nationality which adopts free institutions, that is to
say, institutions which embody reason and are adapted to assist the individual
citizen to attain free reasonable action. He uses the expression, "In Greece
advancing spirit makes itself the content of its volition and its knowledge;">
meaning, as he explains later, that the Greek citizen makes it his personal
interest to adopt as his own will the will of the State; for this is the essence
of freedom. The individual citizen, too, understands the motive of the State;
that is to say, it is not a motive of some mere ruler or tyrant, but the motive
that arises in the mind of the individual citizen, as such, and declared by his
vote. He contrasts this form of spirit with a further developed one, in which
the individual citizen lays less stress upon his individual satisfaction, and looks
more to the reasonable result, even if at the cost of his individuality. One of
the finest passages in Hegel is the paragraph upon Achilles and Alexander. ]
Α
MONG the Greeks we feel ourselves immediately at home,
for we are in the region of Spirit; and though the origin
of the nation, as also its philological peculiarities, may be
traced farther, even to India, the proper Emergence, the true
Palingenesis of Spirit, must be looked for in Greece first. At an
earlier stage I compared the Greek world with the period of ado-
lescence; not indeed in that sense, that youth bears within it a
serious anticipative destiny, and consequently by the very condi-
tions of its culture urges towards [rests on] an ulterior aim,—
presenting thus an inherently incomplete and immature form, and
being then most defective when it would deem itself perfect,—but
in that sense, that youth does not yet present the activity of work,


## p. 7177 (#579) ###########################################

GEORGE WILLIAM FREDERICK HEGEL
7177
does not yet exert itself for a definite intelligent aim, but rather
exhibits a concrete freshness of the soul's life. It appears in the
sensuous actual world as Incarnate Spirit and Spiritualized Sense
[i. e. , æsthetic art], in a unity which owed its origin to Spirit.
Greece presents to us the cheerful aspect of youthful freshness,
of Spiritual vitality. It is here first that advancing Spirit makes
itself the content of its volition and its knowledge; but in such
a way that State, Family, Law, Religion, are at the same time
objects aimed at by individuality, while the latter is individuality
only in virtue of those aims. The [full-grown] man, on the other
hand, devotes his life to labor for an objective aim; which he
pursues consistently, even at the cost of his individuality.
The highest form that floated before the Greek imagination
was Achilles, the Son of the Poet, the Homeric Youth of the
Trojan War. Homer is the element in which the Greek world
lives, as man does in the air. The Greek life is a truly youthful
achievement. Achilles, the ideal youth of poetry, commenced
it; Alexander the Great, the ideal youth of reality, concluded it.
Both appear in contest with Asia: Achilles, as the principal
figure in the national expedition of the Greeks against Troy, does
not stand at its head, but is subject to the Chief of Chiefs; he
cannot be made the leader without becoming a fantastic, unten-
able conception. On the contrary, the second youth, Alexander,
-the freest and finest individuality that the real world has ever
produced,- advances to the head of this youthful life that has
now perfected itself, and accomplishes the revenge against Asia.
THE MEANING OF CHRISTIANITY
From the Philosophy of History'
[After treating Rome as a kingdom and a republic, Hegel takes up, in the
chapter on the Roman Empire, the subject of the introduction of Christianity,
making one of his profoundest (and obscurest) analyses in his discussion of
the doctrine of Christianity as related to the previous standpoints in the world
history. There is no passage in all his writings more worthy of study than
this discussion of the elements of Christianity. It contains one of his best
statements of the superiority of those forms of the State, religion, or philoso-
phy, which give the individual independent subsistence, and do not make him a
transient wave to be swallowed up by the ocean of being. Hegel has unfolded
in the Philosophy of Right,' the Philosophy of Religion,' and the Phenom-
enology of Spirit,' this insight into the substantial and permanent character
of the individual man, who possesses personal immortality. Here he treats of


## p. 7178 (#580) ###########################################

7178
GEORGE WILLIAM FREDERICK HEGEL
it as the essential element in Christianity, which recognizes individual per-
sonality in the absolute, and the reflection of that permanent individuality
in human beings. In fact, Hegel sees in the doctrine of the incarnation, cruci-
fixion, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, the adequate religious statement
of this final doctrine of the creation of the individual for immortality and
reconciliation with God. It is the doctrine of the divine-human. «The Abso-
lute Object, Truth, is Spirit; " that is to say, the object of God's thinking is
man in the highest institutional form, called in revelation the "invisible
Church" or the "City of God. » This, however, is not only the object of
God's consciousness, but also of man's as a member of the invisible Church;
and thus, as Hegel goes on to say, man realizes that the essential being of the
world is his own essential being, and thus he removes its mere objectivity,
its existence as an alien being outside of himself, which he adopts merely on
external authority, and thus comes to make it internal, subjective, seeing its
truth by his own insight and not on mere hearsay. ]
T HAS been remarked that Cæsar inaugurated the Modern
World on the side of reality, while its spiritual and inward
existence was unfolded under Augustus. At the beginning of
that empire whose principle we have recognized as finiteness and
particular subjectivity exaggerated to infinitude, the salvation of
the World had its birth in the same principle of subjectivity,—
viz. , as a particular person, in abstract subjectivity, but in such a
way that conversely, finiteness is only the form of his appear-
ance, while infinity and absolutely independent existence con-
stitute the essence and substantial being which it embodies. The
Roman World as it has been described-in its desperate condi-
tion and the pain of abandonment by God-came to an open
rupture with reality, and made prominent the general desire for
a satisfaction such as can only be attained in "the inner man,"
the Soul, thus preparing the ground for a higher Spiritual
World. Rome was the Fate that crushed down the gods and all
genial life in its hard service, while it was the power that puri-
fied the human heart from all specialty. Its entire condition is
therefore analogous to a place of birth, and its pain is like the
travail-throes of another and higher Spirit, which manifested
itself in connection with the Christian Religion. This higher
Spirit involves the reconciliation and emancipation of Spirit;
while man obtains the consciousness of Spirit in its universality
and infinity. The Absolute Object, Truth, is Spirit; and as man
himself is Spirit, he is present [is mirrored] to himself in that
object, and thus in his Absolute Object has found Essential
Being and his own essential being. But in order that the object-
ivity of Essential Being may be done away with, and Spirit be
-


## p. 7179 (#581) ###########################################

GEORGE WILLIAM FREDERICK HEGEL
7179
no longer alien to itself,-may be with itself [self-harmonized],
the Naturalness of Spirit, that in virtue of which man is a
special empirical existence, must be removed; so that the alien
element may be destroyed, and the reconciliation of Spirit be
accomplished.
THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY
From the Philosophy of History>
[Hegel goes on to show the significance of the doctrine of the Trinity, as
a symbol of this deep truth. He discusses the appearance of concrete sub-
jective caprice in the Greek national mind, and the abstract subjective mind
in the Roman national mind, especially in the right of private property, in
goods and chattels, and in land,- a right which realized for the citizen a
sphere of free individuality. ]
G
OD is thus recognized as Spirit only when known as the Tri-
une. This new principle is the axis on which the History
of the World turns. This is the goal and the starting-point
of History. "When the fullness of the time was come, God sent
his Son," is the statement of the Bible. This means nothing else
than that self-consciousness had reached the phases of development
[momente] whose resultant constitutes the Idea of Spirit, and had
come to feel the necessity of comprehending those phases abso-
lutely. This must now be more fully explained. We said of the
Greeks, that the law for their Spirit was "Man, know thyself. "
The Greek Spirit was a consciousness of Spirit, but under a lim-
ited form, having the element of Nature as an essential ingre-
dient. Spirit may have had the upper hand, but the unity of
the superior and the subordinate was itself still Natural. Spirit
appeared as specialized in the idiosyncrasies of the genius of the
several Greek nationalities and of their divinities, and was repre-
sented by Art, in whose sphere the Sensuous is elevated only to
the middle ground of beautiful form and shape, but not to pure
Thought. The element of Subjectivity that was wanting in the
Greeks we found among the Romans; but as it was merely
formal and in itself indefinite, it took its material from passion
and caprice; - even the most shameful degradations could be here
connected with a divine dread [vide the declaration of Hispala
respecting the Bacchanalia, Livy xxxix. 13]. This element of
subjectivity is afterwards further realized as Personality of Indi-
viduals a realization which is exactly adequate to the principle,


## p. 7180 (#582) ###########################################

7180
GEORGE WILLIAM FREDERICK HEGEL
and is equally abstract and formal. As such an Ego [such a per-
sonality], I am infinite to myself, and my phenomenal existence
consists in the property recognized as mine, and the recognition
of my personality. This inner existence goes no further; all
the applications of the principle merge in this. Individuals are
thereby posited as atoms; but they are at the same time subject
to the severe rule of the One, which, as monas monadum, is a
power over private persons [the connection between the ruler
and the ruled is not mediated by the claim of Divine or of Con-
stitutional Right, or any general principle, but is direct and indi-
vidual, the Emperor being the immediate lord of each subject in
the Empire]. That Private Right is therefore, ipso facto, a nul-
lity, an ignoring of the personality; and the supposed condition of
Right turns out to be an absolute destitution of it. This contra-
diction is the misery of the Roman World.
THE NATURE OF EVIL
From the Philosophy of History'
[This free individuality, founded on the ownership of property, was not
balanced by a freedom in the Roman imperial government. In relation to the
Emperor everything was uncertain. All the nations of Europe, Asia, and
Africa were brought under the yoke of the Roman law. Deprived of his
local religion, of his local rulers, and of all his special aims, Rome and the
Roman Empire were placed before man as supreme object of his will, and
there arose a feeling of longing, an unsatisfied aspiration. Hegel compares this
feeling to that expressed in the Psalms of David and in the Prophets. This
is a remarkable commentary on the expression "The fullness of time was
come. " He makes a discrimination between the consciousness of sin revealed
in the Old Testament, and the shallow idea of error or evil, giving a profound
significance to the idea of the Fall. ]
THE
HE higher condition in which the soul itself feels pain and
longing-in which man is not only "drawn," but feels that
the drawing is into himself [into his own inmost nature]—
is still absent. What has been reflection on our part must arise
in the mind of the subject of this discipline in the form of a
consciousness that in himself he is miserable and null. Outward
suffering must, as already said, be merged in a sorrow of the
inner man. He must feel himself as the negation of himself; he
must see that his misery is the misery of his nature-that he
is in himself a divided and discordant being. This state of mind,


## p. 7181 (#583) ###########################################

GEORGE WILLIAM FREDERICK HEGEL
7181
this self-chastening, this pain occasioned by our individual noth-
ingness, the wretchedness of our [isolated] self, and the longing
to transcend this condition of soul,- must be looked for else-
where than in the properly Roman World. It is this which
gives to the Jewish People their World-Historical importance and
weight; for from this state of mind arose that higher phase in
which Spirit came to absolute self-consciousness-passing from
that alien form of being which is its discord and pain, and
mirroring itself in its own essence. The state of feeling in ques-
tion we find expressed most purely and beautifully in the Psalms
of David, and in the Prophets; the chief burden of whose utter-
ances is the thirst of the soul after God; its profound sorrow
for its transgressions, the desire for righteousness and holiness.
Of this Spirit we have the mythical representation at the very
beginning of the Jewish canonical books, in the account of the
Fall. Man, created in the image of God, lost, it is said, his state
of absolute contentment, by eating of the Tree of the Knowledge
of Good and Evil. Sin consists here only in Knowledge; this
is the sinful element, and by it man is stated to have trifled
away his Natural happiness. This is a deep truth, that evil lies
in consciousness: for the brutes are neither evil nor good; the
merely Natural Man quite as little. Consciousness occasions
the separation of the Ego, in its boundless freedom as arbitrary
choice, from the pure essence of the Will,— i. e. , from the Good.
Knowledge, as the disannulling of the unity of mere Nature,
is the "Fall"; which is no casual conception, but the eternal
history of Spirit. For the state of innocence, the paradisiacal
condition, is that of the brute. Paradise is a park, where only
brutes, not men, can remain. For the brute is one with God
only implicitly [not consciously]. Only Man's Spirit [that is]
has a self-cognizant existence. This existence for self, this
consciousness, is at the same time separation from the Universal
and Divine Spirit. If I hold in my abstract Freedom, in contra-
position to the Good, I adopt the standpoint of Evil.


## p. 7182 (#584) ###########################################

7182
GEORGE WILLIAM FREDERICK HEGEL
THE FALL
From the Philosophy of History>
[The Fall is the eternal mythus of man, stating the arrival of man to a
deeper consciousness of his true self,- his union with the divine-human and
his wide separation between his real and his ideal; the necessity for a recon-
ciliation of the two. A further interpretation of the Old Testament doctrine
of the fall of man and the history of the chosen people. ]
THE
HE Fall is therefore the eternal Mythus of Man; in fact, the
very transition by which he becomes man. Persistence in
this standpoint is, however, Evil, and the feeling of pain at
such a condition, and of longing to transcend it, we find in David,
when he says: "Lord, create for me a pure heart, a new stead-
fast Spirit. " This feeling we observe even in the account of
the Fall; though an announcement of reconciliation is not made
there, but rather one of continuance in misery. Yet we have in
this narrative the prediction of reconciliation in the sentence,
"The Serpent's head shall be bruised;" but still more profoundly
expressed where it is stated that when God saw that Adam had
eaten of that tree, he said, “Behold, Adam is become as one of
us, knowing Good and Evil. " God confirms the words of the
Serpent. Implicitly and explicitly, then, we have the truth that
man through Spirit-through cognition of the Universal and the
Particular comprehends God himself. But it is only God that
declares this, not man; the latter remains, on the contrary, in
a state of internal discord. The joy of reconciliation is still dis-
from humanity; the absolute and final repose of his whole
being is not yet discovered to man. It exists, in the first in-
stance, only for God. As far as the present is concerned, the
feeling of pain at his condition is regarded as a final award.
The satisfaction which man enjoys at first, consists in the finite
and temporal blessings conferred on the Chosen Family and the
possession of the Land of Canaan. His repose is not found in
God. Sacrifices are, it is true, offered to Him in the Temple,
and atonement made by outward offerings and inward penitence.
But that mundane satisfaction in the Chosen Family, and its
possession of Canaan, was taken from the Jewish people in the
chastisement inflicted by the Roman Empire. The Syrian kings
did indeed oppress it, but it was left for the Romans to annul
its individuality. The Temple of Zion is destroyed; the God-
serving nation is scattered to the winds. Here every source of
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬


## p. 7183 (#585) ###########################################

GEORGE WILLIAM FREDERICK HEGEL
7183
satisfaction is taken away, and the nation is driven back to the
standpoint of that primeval Mythus, the standpoint of that pain-
ful feeling which humanity experiences when thrown upon itself.
Opposed to the universal Fatum of the Roman World, we have.
here the consciousness of Evil and the direction of the mind
Godwards. All that remains to be done is, that this fundamental
idea should be expanded to an objective universal sense, and be
taken as the concrete existence of man as the completion of
his nature. Formerly the Land of Canaan, and themselves as
the people of God, had been regarded by the Jews as that con-
crete and complete existence. But this basis of satisfaction is
now lost, and thence arises the sense of misery and failure of
hope in God, with whom that happy reality had been essentially
connected. Here, then, misery is not the stupid immersion in a
blind Fate, but a boundless energy of longing. Stoicism taught
only that the Negative is not—that pain must not be recognized
as a veritable existence: but Jewish feeling persists in acknowl-
edging Reality and desires harmony and reconciliation within its.
sphere; for that feeling is based on the Oriental Unity of Nature,
-i. e. , the unity of Reality, of Subjectivity, with the substance
of the One Essential Being. Through the loss of mere outward
reality Spirit is driven back within itself; the side of reality is
thus refined to Universality, through the reference of it to the
One.
―
――――――――――
THE ATONEMENT
From the Philosophy of History>
<
[The Persian idea of good and evil (Ormuzd and Ahriman) is not much
deeper than that of light and darkness, but in the Old Testament it becomes
the distinction between holiness and sin. Hegel points out the infinite depth
of subjectivity or personal self-realization that is involved in consciousness of
sin. He shows how "that unrest of infinite sorrow" passes over into a con-
sciousness of the infinite gain of reconciliation with the Divine when "The
fullness of time was come. "]
THE
HE Oriental antithesis of Light and Darkness is transferred to
Spirit, and the Darkness becomes Sin. For the abnegation
of reality there is no compensation but Subjectivity itself —
the Human Will as intrinsically universal; and thereby alone
does reconciliation become possible. Sin is the discerning of
Good and Evil as separation; but this discerning likewise heals.


## p. 7184 (#586) ###########################################

7184
GEORGE WILLIAM FREDERICK HEGEL
the ancient hurt, and is the fountain of infinite reconciliation.
The discerning in question brings with it the destruction of that
which is external and alien in consciousness, and is consequently
the return of subjectivity into itself. This, then, adopted into
the actual self-consciousness of the World, is the Reconciliation
[atonement] of the World. From that unrest of infinite sorrow
in which the two sides of the antithesis stand related to each
other is developed the unity of God with Reality [which latter
had been posited as negative],-i. e. , with Subjectivity which had
been separated from Him. The infinite loss is counterbalanced
only by its infinity, and thereby becomes infinite gain. The rec
ognition of the identity of the Subject and God was introduced
into the World when the fullness of Time was come: the con-
sciousness of this identity is the recognition of God in his true
essence. The material of Truth is Spirit itself inherent vital
movement. The nature of God as pure Spirit is manifested to
man in the Christian Religion.
-


## p. 7185 (#587) ###########################################

7185
HEINRICH HEINE
(1799-1856)
BY RICHARD BURTON
I
F QUALITY is to decide a writer's position, Heinrich Heine
stands with the few great poets and literary men of Ger-
many. His lyrics at their best have not been surpassed in
his own land, and rank with the masterpieces of their kind in world
literature. As a prose writer he had extraordinary brilliancy, vigor
of thought, and grace of form, and as a thinker he must be regarded
as one of the pioneers of modern ideas in our century. In German
criticism, because of his Semitic blood-his pen not seldom dipped
in gall when he wrote of the Fatherland—and his defects of char-
acter, full justice has not been done to him as singer and sayer. It
remained for an English critic, Matthew Arnold, to define his true
place in the literature of our time. A brief survey of his life will
make this plainer.
A main thing to remember of Heine the man is, that he was an
upper-class Jew. The services of this wonderful people to art, let-
ters, and philosophy, as well as to politics and finance, are familiar.
This boy of Düsseldorf was one of the most gifted of the race of
Mendelssohn and Rothschild, Rachel and Rubinstein, Chopin and
Disraeli. Born in that picturesque old Rhine town, December 12th
(or 13th), 1799,- he just missed, as he said, being one of the first
men of the century,- his father was a wealthy merchant, his mother
a Van Geldern, daughter of a noted physician and statesman. He
received a good education, first in a Jesuit monastery, then-after
an attempt to establish him at Hamburg in mercantile life, which to
the disappointment of his family proved utterly distasteful in the
German universities of Bonn and Göttingen. The law was thought
of as a profession; but this necessitated his becoming a Christian, for
at the time in Germany all the learned callings were closed to Jews.
Heine, though not a believer in the religion of his people, was in
thorough sympathy with their wrongs, always the champion of their
cause: deeply must he have felt the humiliation of this enforced
apostasy, which was performed in 1825, in his twenty-sixth year, the
baptismal registry reading "Johann Christian Heine," names he
never made use of as a writer.