was an admiring reader of Shakespeare in German, and at thirteen he had acquired Latin, Greek, Hebrew and Geometry. Having an early bent toward metaphysics, he studied Kant, Constant, and Rousseau, with the Greek philosophers, and removing to Jena, in 1801, lectured for many years on philosophy and history. Associated with Schelling in a journal on Philosophy, he differed from him in opinion, and developed his own intellectual creed in his book on “Phenomenology." Hegel's influence over German thought was very great, and more than a thousand treatises have been written on his philosophical system. His works are characterized by great elevation of thought, and earnest faith in what he termed the Absolute, as revealed in the human intellect and the progress of mankind.] In the history of the world something else is generally brought out by means of the actions of individual men than they themselves aim at or attain, than they directly know of or will; they achieve their own ends, but something farther is brought to pass in connection with their acts, which also lies therein, but which did not lie in their consciousness and purposes. As an analogous example we cite the case of a man, who, out of revenge, which may have been justly excited, that is, by an unjust injury, goes to work and sets fire to the house of another man. Even in doing this, there is a connection made between the direct act, and the other, although themselves merely external circumstances, which do not belong to this act, taken wholly and directly by itself. This act, as such, is the holding perhaps of a small flame to a small spot of a wooden beam. What is not yet accomplished by this act goes on and is done of itself; the part of the beam that was set on fire is connected with other parts of the same beam, this too with the rafters and joists of the whole house, this house with other houses, and a wide-spread conflagration ensues, which destroys the property and goods of many other men besides the one against whom the revenge was directed, and even costs many men their lives. All this lay not in the general act, nor in the intention of him who began it all. But, still farther, this action has another general character and destination: in the purpose of the actor it was only revenge against an individual by means of the destruction of his property; but it is also a crime, and this involves, farther, a punishment. This may not have been included in the consciousness, and still less in the will of the doer, but still such is his act in itself, the general character, the very substance of it, that which is achieved by it. In this example all that we would hold fast is, that in the immediate action there can lie something more than what was in the will and consciousness of the actor. The substance of the action, and thereby the act itself, here turns round against the doer; it becomes a return-blow against him, which ruins him. We have not here to lay any emphasis upon the action considered as a crime; it is intended only as an analogous example, to show, that to the definite action there may be something more than the end directly willed. One other case may be adduced which will come up later in its own place, and which, being itself historical, contains, in the special form which is essential to our purpose, the union of the general with the particular, of an end necessary in itself with an aim which might seem accidental. It is that of Cæsar, in danger of losing the posi tion he had obtained, if not of superiority over, yet of equality with, the other man who stood at the head of the Roman state, and of submitting to those who were upon the point of becoming his enemies. These enemies, who at the same time had their own personal ends in view, had on their side the formal constitution of the State and the power of seeming legality. Cæsar fought to maintain his own position, honor and safety, and the victory over his opponents was at the same time the conquest of the whole kingdom: and thus he became, leaving only the forms of the constitution of the State, the sole possessor of power. The carrying out of his own at first negative purpose got for him the supremacy in Rome; but this was also in its true nature a necessary element in the history of Rome and of the world, so that it was not his own private gain merely, but an instinct which consummated that which, considered by itself, lay in the times themselves. Such are the great men of history-those whose private purposes contain the substance of that which is the will of the spirit of the world. This substance constitutes their real power; it is contained in the general and unconscious instinct of men; they are inwardly impelled thereto, and have no ground on which they can stand in opposing the man who has undertaken the execution of such a purpose in his own interest. The people assemble around his banner; he shows to them, and carries out, that which is their own immanent destiny. Should we, farther, cast a look at the fate of these world-historical individuals, we see that they have had the fortune to be the leaders to a consummation which marks a stage in the progress of the general mind. That reason makes use of these instruments we might call its craft; for it lets them carry out their own aims with all the rage of passion, and not only keeps itself unharmed, but makes itself dominant. The particular is for the most part too feeble against the universal; the individuals are sacrificed. Thus the world's history presents itself as the conflict of individuals, and in the field of their special interests all goes on very naturally. In the animal world the preservation of life is the aim and instinct of each individual, and yet reason or general laws prevail, and the individuals fall; thus is it also in the spiritual world. Passions destroy each other; reason alone watches, pursues its end, and makes itself authoritative. THE STATE. mode in which man existed in his natural and undeveloped condition. In this sense, a state of nature is generally assumed in which man is represented as being in the possession of his natural rights in the unrestricted exercise and enjoyment of his freedom. This assumption does not pass for something verified by history; and if it were earnestly attempted, it would be difficult to show that such a state of nature either now exists, or has in past times anywhere existed. States of savageness can indeed be pointed out, but these are always connected with rude passions and violence, and, even when most cultivated, we find, among such tribes, social regulations which restrict true freedom. This whole assumption is one of those misty figments which a theorizing spirit generates; a notion necessarily flowing from such a spirit, for which it then feigns a real existence, without justifying itself in an historical way. Such as we find this state of nature to be That which is substantial and true in in fact, so is it in the notion thereof. Freeman's will is what we call morality and law; dom, being the ideality of what is primitive and this is what is divine in the external and natural, is not found in the primitive objects of history. Antigone in Sophocles and natural condition of man; it must first says: "The divine commands are not of be wrought out and won, and that, too, by yesterday or to-day; no, they live without an unending mediation between the imend, and no one knows whence and when pulses of knowledge and of will. Hence the they came." Moral laws are not accidental, state of nature is a state of injustice, of but are reason itself. When these moral force, of unrestrained natural impulses to laws or ethical principles, which compose inhuman deeds and feelings. Society and the true substance of humanity, have autho- the State do indeed make restrictions, but rity in the actions and sentiments of men, the restrictions are put upon these crude when they are really carried out and main-emotions and rude impulses, upon fickleness tained, then we have the State. Now-adays there are manifold errors current upon this matter which pass for established truths, and have all prejudices in their favor; we will only notice a few of them, and such as have a special bearing upon the aim of our history. The State, we say, is the realization of freedom in conformity with ethical laws. An opinion directly opposed to this view is current, which asserts that man is free by nature, and that the society, the State, of which he is naturally a member, must restrict this natural freedom. That man is free by nature is wholly correct in the sense, that this is the true idea of man, but this idea is something that is to be realized; it expresses his destination, and not what he actually is at first; the nature of any object can mean the same as the true conception of it. But this is not the whole meaning of the phrase; there is also included in it the notion of the and passion. These limitations are made by that constant process of mediation between opposing principles, which is the only way in which such freedom is produced, as is conformed to the true idea thereof, and to the laws of reason. Right and ethics belong to the very idea of freedom; these are, in their very nature, universal essences, objects, and ends; they are found only as we, by the activity of thought, distinguish our selves from whatever is sensual, and develop our characters in contrast with what is merely natural; and they must, so to speak, be moulded into and embodied in the will which is at first only sensuous, even in opposition to this will. This is the everlasting misapprehension of freedom, to know it only in its formal and subjective aspects, abstracted from its essential objects and aims; thus is it that the limitation of those impulses, desires, and passions, which be long only to single individuals as such, to the sphere of caprice and mere liking, is taken to be a restriction of freedom. Such limitation is rather absolutely necessary to the emancipation of the will; and society and the State are the conditions under which freedom is realized. LETTER TO A YOUNG POET. [CHRISTOPH MARTIN WIELAND, 1733-1813, a versatile German writer, was educated at Tübingen University, and after eight years residence in Switzerland, he became an officer in the German civil service. Wieland employed all his leisure hours in literary composition, pouring out novels, poems, and dramas with prolific pen. He was the first to translate Shakespeare into German (1762), edited a literary periodical for more than thirty years, and translated Horace, Lucian, and Cicero. Wieland's works, which form fifty volumes, evince much grace and cheerfulness of tone, and his enthusiasm for the elegance and freedom of French literature, as well as his worship of Shakespeare, and of the Middle Ages, may be said to mark an epoch in the literature of Germany.] WELL then, my young friend! No man can escape his destiny; and if you too are destined to the laurel-wreath and the dark cell of the divine Tasso, or to the spiritual and the posthumous fame of the Portuguese Camoens, can I, weak mortal, prevent it? I have heard your confession and have pondered well the whole case. Your inward vocation seems indeed to admit of no doubt. Such tension of the inner and the outer senses ! All so sharply tuned that the soft est breath of Nature causes the entire organ of the soul to vibrate harmoniously like an Eolian harp; and every sensation gives back, with heightened beauty and the purest accord, like a perfect echo, the melody of the object, and grows ever sweeter as it gradually dies away. A memory in which nothing is lost, but everything imperceptibly coalesces into that fine, plastic, half spiritual substance from which Fancy breathes forth its own new and magical creations. An imagination which, by an involuntary, mward impulse, idealizes each individual object, clothes everything abstract in determinate forms, to the simple sign supplies imperceptibly ever the thing itself or an image resembling it, in short, which embodies all that is spiritual, and purifies and ennobles into spirituality all that is material. A warm and tender soul which kindles with every breath, all nerve, sensation and sympathy; which can imagine nothing dead, nothing unfeeling in Nature, but is ever ready to impart its own excess of life, feeling, passion to all things about it, ever with the greatest ease and rapidity to metamorphose others into itself and itself into others. A passionate love for the wonderful, the beautiful and the sublime in the material and the moral world, a love avowed from earliest youth and never false to itself. A heart which beats high at every noble deed and revolts with horror from every bad, cowardly and unfeeling one. Add to all this, together with the most cheerful temperament and quick circulation, an inborn propensity to reflect, to search within, to pursue your own thoughts, to rove in a world of ideas, and, together with the most social disposition and the most delicate vivacity of sympathetic inclinations, an ever predominant love for solitude, for the silence of the forest, for all that promotes the quiet of the senses, all that disengages the soul from the burdens by which it is hampered in its free and peculiar flight, or that rescues it from the distractions which interrupt its inward occupations. To be sure, if all this does not constitute native endowment for a poet to be, if it is not sufficient to assure a youth that—to speak with the philosopher among the poets it is the Muses themselves that have sent him this beautiful phrenzy, which he can no more shake off than Virgil's Cumaan Sibyl can shake off the prophetic god-* Be easy, my friend! I recognize and reverence the indelible character by which Nature has consecrated you to the priest hood of the Muses, and since, according to the divine Plato, it is only necessary that that Muses' fury, in order to produce the finest effects, should seize a tender and uncoloured soul, I must be greatly deceived or you will do honour to the theory of our philosopher. FROM THE DIALOGUES OF THE GODS. DIALOGUE VI. [Mercury brings to the banqueting Gods the informa tion that they have been formally deposed in the Roman Senate-under the government of the Emperor Theodo sius the great—Jupiter discusses this event with great moderation, and reveals to the Gods consoling glimpses of the future.] SPEAKERS. All the gods at once. Jupiter deposed! Is it possible? Jupiter! Juno. You talk like a crazy man, Mercu ry.-Esculapius, do feel of his pulse! The gods. Jupiter deposed! Mercury. As I said, formally and solemnly, by a great majority of voices, declared to be a man of straw-what do I say? a man of straw is something;-less than a man of straw, a nothing: robbed of his temples, his priests, his dignity as supreme protector of the Roman empire! JUPITER, JUNO, APOLLO, MINERVA, VENUS, BACCHUS, VESTA, CERES, VICTORIA, QUIRINUS, SERAPIS, MOMUS AND MERCURY. Jupiter and Juno, with the other inhabitants of Olympus, are sitting in an open hall of the Olympian palace, at sundry large tables. Ganymede and Antinous are pouring out nectar for the gods, Hebe, for Hercules. That is mad news, Mercury! the goddesses. The Muses perform table-But, as true as I am Hercules, (flourish music, the Graces and the Hours dance ing his club) they shall not have done me pantomimic dances; and Jocus, from time that for nothing! to time, provokes the blessed gods to loud laughter, by his caricatures and his lazzi. In the moment of the greatest merriment, Mercury comes flying in, in great haste. Jupiter. You are late, my son; how you look! What news do you bring us from below there? Venus, to Bacchus. He seems to have a heavy load of it; how troubled he looks! Mercury. The newest that I bring with me is not very well calculated to enhance the mirth which, I see, reigns here at this moment. Jupiter. At least your looks are not, Mercury. What can have happened so bad as to disturb even the gods in their enjoyment? Quirinus. Has an earthquake destroyed the Capitol? Mercury. That would be a trifling affair. Ceres. Has a violent eruption of Etna devastated my beautiful Sicily? Bacchus. Or has an untimely frost blighted the Campanian vines? Mercury. Trifles! Trifles! Jupiter. Be quiet, Hercules!-So then, Jupiter Optimus Maximus, Capitolinus, Feretrius, Stator, Lapis, &c., &c., has finished his part? Mercury. Your statue is thrown down, and they are now busily employed in demolishing your temple. The same tragedy is going on in all the provinces and corners of the Roman empire. Everywhere legions of goat-bearded, semi-human beings, with torches and crowbars, hammers, mattocks and axes are falling to work and destroying with fanatic rage the venerable objects of the arch-old popular faith. Serapis. Wo is me! What will be the fate of my splendid temple at Alexandria and my superb colossal image! If the desert of Thebais spews out but one half of its sacred Satyrs against them, it is a gone case. Momus. O you have nothing to fear, Serapis. Who would dare to touch your image, when it is an understood thing at Alexandria, that, on the least outrage committed against it by any sacrilegious hand, heaven and earth will tumble into ruins and Nature Jupiter. Well! Come? Out with your sink back into ancient chaos? tale of wo! Quirinus. Only, one cannot always de Mercury. It is nothing more than-Hepend on that sort of tradition, my good hesitates.) Jupiter. Do not make me impatient, Hermes! What is "nothing more than ?" Mercury. Nothing, Jupiter, but that at Serapis! It might happen to you as it did to the massive-gold statue of the goddess Anaitis at Zela, with regard to which, it was also believed, that the first one who offered any violence to it, would be struck dead on the spot. Serapis. And what happened to that statue ? Quirinus. When the Triumvir, Antony, had routed Pharnaces at Zela, the city, together with the temple of Anaitis, was plundered; and no one could tell what had become of the massive-gold goddess. Some years after, it happened that Augustus was spending the night at Bononia with one of Antony's veterans. The Imperator was splendidly entertained, and, at table, the conversation happening to turn on the battle of Zela and the plunder of the temple of Anaitis, he asked his host, as an eye-witness, whether it was true that the first one who laid hand on her fell suddenly dead to the ground?-You behold that rash man before you, said the veteran, and you are actually supping from a leg of the goddess. I had the good fortune to seize upon her first. Anaitis is a very good person, and I gratefully confess, that I am indebted to her for all my wealth. Serapis. That is poor consolation which you give me, Quirinus! If such things are going on in the world as Mercury reports, I can promise myself no better fate for my colossus at Alexandria. It is really dreadful that Jupiter can look so composedly on such enormities! Jupiter. You would do well, Serapis, if you would follow my example. For a Divinity of Pontus, you have enjoyed the honour of being worshipped from East to West long enough, and you can hardly expect that your temples should fare better than mine, or that your colossus should last longer than the god-like master-piece of Phidias. Surely you do not look to be the only one that stands upright, when all the rest of us are fallen. Momus. Fy! Fy! Jupiter, what have you done with your famous thunderbolts, that you submit so quietly to your fall? Jupiter. If I were not what I am, I should answer that foolish question with one of them, witling! Quirinus to Mercury. You must tell it to me again, Mercury, before I can believe you. Do you mean to say then, that my Flamen is abolished? my temple closed? that my festival is no longer celebrated? Have the enervated, slavish, unfeeling Quirites degenerated to this degree of ingratitude toward their founder? Mercury. I should deceive you, if I were to give any other account. Victoria. Then I need not ask what has become of my altar and my statue in the Julian Curia. The Romans have so long forgotten the art of conquering, that I find nothing more natural than that they should not even be able to bear the presence of my image any longer. With every look which they cast upon it, it would seem to reproach them with their shameful degeneracy. Victoria has nothing more to do with Romans whose very name has become an insult among Barbarians, which only blood can wash out. Vesta. Under such circumstances they will be sure not to let the sacred fire burn any longer in my temple. Heaven! What will be the fate of my poor virgins? Mercury. O, they will not touch a hair of their heads, venerable Vesta! They will let them very quietly die of hunger. Quirinus. How times change! Formerly, it was a dreadful misfortune for the whole Roman Empire, if the sacred fire, on the altar of Vesta, went out. Mercury. And now, there would be a deal more fuss made, if the fire should go out in some Roman cook's-shop than if the Vestals should let theirs expire twice every week. Quirinus. But who then, in future, is to be the patron and protector of Rome, in my stead? Mercury. St. Peter with the double key has bespoken this little office for himself. Quirinus. St. Peter with the double key! Who is he? Mercury. I do not exactly know, myself. Ask Apollo; perhaps he can give you more information on the subject. Apollo. That is a man, Quirinus, who, in his successors, will govern half the world for eight hundred years; although he himself was only a poor fisherman. Quirinus. What! Will the world let itself be governed by fishers? Apollo. At least by a certain kind of fishers, by fishers of men, who with a very ingenious kind of bow-net, called decretals, will gradually catch all the nations and princes of Europe. Their commands will be regarded as divine oracles and a piece of sheep-skin or of paper sealed with St. Peter's fisher's ring will have power to create and depose kings. Quirinus. This St. Peter, with his double key, must be a mighty conjuror! |