was established and installed with professors by Cosmos de Medici, and Ficinus was placed at the head of it. There were pure Aristotelians like Pomponius: Gassendi later on maintained the Epicurean philosophy, for his philosophy dealt with Physics after the manner of the Epicureans; Lipsius wished to be a Stoic, and so on. The sense of opposition was so great, ancient philosophy and Christianity—from or in which no special philosophy had developed—were so diverse, that no philosophy peculiar to itself could develop in Christianity. What was or could be had as philosophy, either in conformity with or in opposition to Christianity, was a certain ancient philosophy which was thus taken up anew. But mummies when brought amongst living beings cannot there remain. Mind had for long possessed a more substantial life, a more profound Notion of itself, and hence its thought had higher needs than such as could be satisfied by these philosophies. A revival such as this is then to be regarded only as the transitory period in which we learn to know the forms which are implied and which have gone before, and as the renewal of former struggles through the steps necessary in development. Such reconstructions and repetitions in a distant time of principles which have become foreign to Mind, are in history transitory only, and formed in a language which is dead. Such things are translations only and not originals, and Mind does not find satisfaction excepting in knowledge of its own origination.
When modern times are in the same way called upon to revert to the standpoint of an ancient philosophy (as is recommended specially in regard to the philosophy of Plato) in order to make this a means of escaping from the complications and difficulties of succeeding times, this reversion does not come naturally as in the first case. This discreet counsel has the same origin as the request to cultivated members of society to turn back to the customs and ideas of the savages of the North American forests, or as the recommendation to adopt the religion of Melchisedec which Fichte[6] has maintained to be the purest and simplest possible, and therefore the one at which we must eventually arrive. On the one hand, in this retrogression the desire for an origin and for a fixed point of departure is unmistakable, but such must be sought for in thought and Idea alone and not in an authoritatively given form. On the other hand, the return of the developed, enriched Mind to a simplicity such as this—which means to an abstraction, an abstract condition or thought—is to be regarded only as the escape of an incapacity which cannot enjoy the rich material of development which it sees before it, and which demands to be controlled and comprehended in its very depths by thought, but seeks a refuge in fleeing from the difficulty and in mere sterility.
From what has been said it is quite comprehensible how so many of those who, whether induced by some special attraction such as this, or simply by the fame of a Plato or ancient philosophy in general, direct their way thereto in order to draw their own philosophy from these sources, do not find themselves satisfied by the study, and unjustifiably quit such altogether. Satisfaction is found in them to a certain extent only. We must know in ancient philosophy or in the philosophy of any given period, what we are going to look for. Or at least we must know that in such a philosophy there is before us a definite stage in the development of thought, and in it those forms and necessities of Mind which lie within the limits of that stage alone are brought into existence. There slumber in the Mind of modern times ideas more profound which require for their awakening other surroundings and another present than the abstract, dim, grey thought of olden times. In Plato, for instance, questions regarding the nature of freedom, the origin of evil and of sin, providence, &c., do not find their philosophic answer. On such subjects we certainly may in part take the ordinary serious views of the present time, and in part philosophically set their consideration altogether aside, or else consider sin and freedom as something negative only. But neither the one plan nor the other gives freedom to Mind if such subjects have once been explicitly for it, and if the opposition in self-consciousness has given it the power of sinking its interests therein. The case is similar with regard to questions regarding the limits of knowledge, the opposition between subjectivity and objectivity which had not yet come up in Plato’s age. The independence of the “I” within itself and its explicit existence was foreign to him; man had not yet gone back within himself, had not yet set himself forth as explicit. The subject was indeed the individual as free, but as yet he knew himself only as in unity with his Being. The Athenian knew himself to be free, as such, just as the Roman citizen would, as _ingenuus_. But the fact that man is in and for himself free, in his essence and as man, free born, was known neither by Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, nor the Roman legislators, even though it is this conception alone which forms the source of law. In Christianity the individual, personal mind for the first time becomes of real, infinite and absolute value; God wills that all men shall be saved. It was in the Christian religion that the doctrine was advanced that all men are equal before God, because Christ has set them free with the freedom of Christianity. These principles make freedom independent of any such things as birth, standing or culture. The progress made through them is enormous, but they still come short of this, that to be free constitutes the very idea of man. The sense of this existent principle has been an active force for centuries and centuries, and an impelling power which has brought about the most tremendous revolutions; but the conception and the knowledge of the natural freedom of man is a knowledge of himself which is not old.
B THE RELATION OF PHILOSOPHY TO OTHER DEPARTMENTS OF KNOWLEDGE.
The History of Philosophy has to represent this science in that form of time and individualities from which its outward form has resulted. Such a representation has, however, to shut out from itself the external history of the time, and to take into account only the general character of the people and time, and likewise their circumstances as a whole. But as a matter of fact, the history of Philosophy does present this character, and that indeed in the highest possible degree; its connection with it is of the closest kind, and the particular appearance presented by a philosophy belonging to one special period, is only a particular aspect or element in the character. Because of this inward correspondence we have partly to consider more closely the particular relation borne by a philosophy to its historical surroundings, and partly, but pre-eminently, what is proper to itself, from which alone, after separating everything related however closely, we can fix our standpoint. This connection, which is not merely external but essential, has thus two sides, which we must consider. The first is the distinctly historical side, the second is the connection with other matters—the connection of Philosophy with Religion, for instance, by which we at once obtain a deeper conception of Philosophy itself.
1. THE HISTORICAL SIDE OF THIS CONNECTION.
It is usually said that political affairs and such matters as Religion are to be taken into consideration because they have exercised a great influence on the Philosophy of the time, and similarly it exerts an influence upon them. But when people are content with such a category as “great influence” they place the two in an external relationship, and start from the point of view that both sides are for themselves independent. Here, however, we must think of this relationship in another category, and not according to the influence or effect of one upon the other. The true category is the unity of all these different forms, so that it is one Mind which manifests itself in, and impresses itself upon these different elements.
a. _Outward and historical conditions imposed upon Philosophy._ It must be remarked in the first place, that a certain stage is requisite in the intellectual culture of a people in order that it may have a Philosophy at all. Aristotle says, “Man first begins to philosophize when the necessities of life are supplied” (Metaphysics, I. 2); because since Philosophy is a free and not self-seeking activity, cravings of want must have disappeared, a strength, elevation and inward fortitude of mind must have appeared, passions must be subdued and consciousness so far advanced, before what is universal can be thought of. Philosophy may thus be called a kind of luxury, in so far as luxury signifies those enjoyments and pursuits which do not belong to external necessity as such. Philosophy in this respect seems more capable of being dispensed with than anything else; but that depends on what is called indispensable. From the point of view of mind, Philosophy may even be said to be that which is most essential.
b. _The commencement in History of an intellectual necessity for Philosophy._ However much Philosophy, as the thought and conception of the Mind of a particular time, is _à priori_, it is at the same time just as really a result, since the thought produced and, indeed, the life and action are produced to produce themselves. This activity contains the essential element of a negation, because to produce is also to destroy; Philosophy in producing itself, has the natural as its starting point in order to abrogate it again. Philosophy thus makes its appearance at a time when the Mind of a people has worked its way out of the indifference and stolidity of the first life of nature, as it has also done from the standpoint of the emotional, so that the individual aim has blotted itself out. But as Mind passes on from its natural form, it also proceeds from its exact code of morals and the robustness of life to reflection and conception. The result of this is that it lays hold of and troubles this real, substantial kind of existence, this morality and faith, and thus the period of destruction commences. Further progress is then made through the gathering up of thought within itself. It may be said that Philosophy first commences when a race for the most part has left its concrete life, when separation and change of class have begun, and the people approach toward their fall; when a gulf has arisen between inward strivings and external reality, and the old forms of Religion, &c., are no longer satisfying; when Mind manifests indifference to its living existence or rests unsatisfied therein, and moral life becomes dissolved. Then it is that Mind takes refuge in the clear space of thought to create for itself a kingdom of thought in opposition to the world of actuality, and Philosophy is the reconciliation following upon the destruction of that real world which thought has begun. When Philosophy with its abstractions paints grey in grey, the freshness and life of youth has gone, the reconciliation is not a reconciliation in the actual, but in the ideal world. Thus the Greek philosophers held themselves far removed from the business of the State and were called by the people idlers, because they withdrew themselves within the world of thought.
This holds good throughout all the history of Philosophy. It was so with Ionic Philosophy in the decline of the Ionic States in Asia Minor. Socrates and Plato had no more pleasure in the life of the State in Athens, which was in the course of its decline; Plato tried to bring about something better with Dionysius. Thus in Athens, with the ruin of the Athenian people, the period was reached when Philosophy appeared. In Rome, Philosophy first expanded in the decline of the Republic and of Roman life proper, under the despotism of the Roman Emperors: a time of misfortune for the world and of decay in political life, when earlier religious systems tottered and everything was in the process of struggle and disintegration. With the decline of the Roman Empire, which was so great, rich and glorious, and yet inwardly dead, the height and indeed the zenith of ancient Philosophy is associated through the Neo-Platonists at Alexandria. It was also in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when the Teutonic life of the Middle Ages acquired another form, that Philosophy first became taught, though it was later on that it attained to independence. Before that, political life still existed in unity with Religion, or if the State fought against the Church, the Church still kept the foremost place, but now the gulf between Church and State came into existence. Philosophy thus comes in at a certain epoch only in the development of the whole.
c. _Philosophy as the thought of its time._ But men do not at certain epochs, merely philosophize in general, for there is a definite Philosophy which arises among a people, and the definite character of the standpoint of thought is the same character which permeates all the other historical sides of the spirit of the people, which is most intimately related to them, and which constitutes their foundation. The particular form of a Philosophy is thus contemporaneous with a particular constitution of the people amongst whom it makes its appearance, with their institutions and forms of government, their morality, their social life and the capabilities, customs and enjoyments of the same; it is so with their attempts and achievements in art and science, with their religious, warfares and external relationships, likewise with the decadence of the States in which this particular principle and form had maintained its supremacy, and with the origination and progress of new States in which a higher principle finds its manifestation and development. Mind in each case has elaborated and expanded in the whole domain of its manifold nature the principle of the particular stage of self-consciousness to which it has attained. Thus the Mind of a people in its richness is an organization, and, like a Cathedral, is divided into numerous vaults, passages, pillars and vestibules, all of which have proceeded out of one whole and are directed to one end. Philosophy is one form of these many aspects. And which is it? It is the fullest blossom, the Notion of Mind in its entire form, the consciousness and spiritual essence of all things, the spirit of the time as spirit present in itself. The multifarious whole is reflected in it as in the single focus, in the Notion which knows itself.
The Philosophy which is essential within Christianity could not be found in Rome, for all the various forms of the whole are only the expression of one and the same determinate character. Hence political history, forms of government, art and religion are not related to Philosophy as its causes, nor, on the other hand, is Philosophy the ground of their existence—one and all have the same common root, the spirit of the time. It is one determinate existence, one determinate character which permeates all sides and manifests itself in politics and in all else as in different elements; it is a condition which hangs together in all its parts, and the various parts of which contain nothing which is really inconsistent, however diverse and accidental they may appear to be, and however much they may seem to contradict one another. This particular stage is the product of the one preceding. But to show how the spirit of a particular time moulds its whole actuality and destiny in accordance with its principle, to show this whole edifice in its conception, is far from us—for that would be the object of the whole philosophic world-history. Those forms alone concern us which express the principle of the Mind in a spiritual element related to Philosophy.
This is the position of Philosophy amongst its varying forms, from which it follows that it is entirely identical with its time. But if Philosophy does not stand above its time in content, it does so in form, because, as the thought and knowledge of that which is the substantial spirit of its time, it makes that spirit its object. In as far as Philosophy is in the spirit of its time, the latter is its determined content in the world, although as knowledge, Philosophy is above it, since it places it in the relation of object. But this is in form alone, for Philosophy really has no other content. This knowledge itself undoubtedly is the actuality of Mind, the self-knowledge of Mind which previously was not present: thus the formal difference is also a real and actual difference. Through knowledge, Mind makes manifest a distinction between knowledge and that which is; this knowledge is thus what produces a new form of development. The new forms at first are only special modes of knowledge, and it is thus that a new Philosophy is produced: yet since it already is a wider kind of spirit, it is the inward birthplace of the spirit which will later arrive at actual form. We shall deal further with this in the concrete below, and we shall then see that what the Greek Philosophy was, entered, in the Christian world, into actuality.
2. SEPARATION OF PHILOSOPHY FROM OTHER ALLIED DEPARTMENTS OF KNOWLEDGE.
The history of the other Sciences, of culture and above all the history of art and of religion are, partly in regard to the elements contained in them, and partly to their particular objects, related to the history of Philosophy. It is through this relationship that the treatment of the history of Philosophy has been so confused. If it is to concern itself with the possession of culture generally and then with scientific culture, and then again with popular myths and the dogmas contained only in them, and yet farther with the religious reflections which are already thoughts of a speculative kind, and which make their appearance in them, no bounds are left to Philosophy at all. This is so, partly on account of the amount of material itself and the labour required in working it up and preparing it, and partly because it is in immediate connection with so much else. But the separation must not be made arbitrarily or as by chance, but must be derived from fundamental determinations. If we merely look at the name of Philosophy, all this matter will pertain to its history.
I shall speak of this material from three points of view, for three related aspects are to be eliminated and separated from Philosophy. The first of these is that which is generally considered to be the domain of science, and in which are found the beginnings of understanding thought. The second region is that of mythology and religion; the relation of Philosophy to them seems often to be inimical both in the time of the Greeks and of the Christians. The third is that of philosophizing and the metaphysics of the understanding. While we distinguish what is related to Philosophy, we must also take note of the elements in this related matter which belong to the Notion of Philosophy, but which appear to us to be partially separated from it: and thus we may become acquainted with the Notion of Philosophy.
a. _Relation of Philosophy to Scientific Knowledge._ Knowledge and thought certainly form the element of whatever has to do with particular sciences as they form the element of Philosophy; but their subjects are mainly finite subjects and appearance. A collection of facts known about this content is by its nature excluded from Philosophy: neither this content nor such a form has anything to do with it. But even if the sciences are systematic and contain universal principles and laws from which they proceed, they are still related to a limited circle of objects. The ultimate principles are assumed as are the objects themselves; that is, the outward experience or the feelings of the heart, natural or educated sense of right and duty, constitute the source from which they are created. Logic and the determinations and principles of thought in general are in their methods assumed.
The forms of thought or the points of view and principles which hold good in the sciences and constitute the ultimate support of all their matter, are not peculiar to them, but are common to the condition and culture of the time and of the people. This culture consists mainly in the general ideas and aims, in the whole extent of the particular intellectual powers dominating consciousness and life. Our consciousness has these ideas and allows them to be considered ultimate determinations; it makes use of them as guiding and connecting links, but does not know them and does not even make them the objects of its consideration. To give an abstract example, each act of consciousness has and requires the whole abstract thought-determination of Being. “The sun is in the heavens, the bunch of grapes is ripe,” and so on into infinitude. Again, in a higher culture, such relations as those of cause and effect are involved, as also those of force and its manifestation. All its knowledge and ideas are permeated and governed by a metaphysic such as this; it is the net in which all the concrete matter which occupies mankind in action and in impulses, is grasped. But this web and its knots in our ordinary consciousness are sunk into a manifold material, for it contains the objects and interests which we know and which we have before us. These common threads are not drawn up and made explicitly the objects of our reflection.
We Germans seldom now count general scientific knowledge as Philosophy. And yet traces of this are found, as for instance, in the fact that the philosophic Faculty contains all the Sciences which have not as their immediate aim the Church and State. In connection with this, the significance of the name of Philosophy, which is even now an important matter of discussion in England, comes in question. Natural Sciences are in England called Philosophy. A “Philosophic Journal” in England, edited by Thompson, treats of Chemistry, Agriculture, Manuring, Husbandry, Technology, like Hermbstädt’s Journal, and gives inventions connected therewith. The English call physical instruments, such as the barometer and thermometer, philosophical instruments. Theories too, and especially morality and the moral sciences, which are derived from the feelings of the human heart or from experience, are called Philosophy, and finally this is also so with the theories and principles of Political Economy. And thus at least in England, is the name of Philosophy respected. Some time ago a banquet took place under the presidency of Lord Liverpool, at which the minister Canning was also present. The latter in returning thanks congratulated England in having philosophic principles of government there brought into operation. There, at least, Philosophy is no by-word.
In the first beginnings of culture, however, we are more often met by this admixture of Philosophy and general knowledge. There comes a time to a nation when mind applies itself to universal objects, when, for example, in seeking to bring natural things under general modes of understanding, it tries to learn their causes. Then it is said that a people begins to philosophize, for this content has thought in common with Philosophy. At such a time we find deliverances about all the common events of Nature, as we also find intellectual maxims, moral sentences, general principles respecting morality, the will, duty, and the like, and those who expressed them have been called wise men or philosophers. Thus in the beginnings of Greek Philosophy we find the seven sages and the Ionic Philosophers. From them a number of ideas and discoveries are conveyed to us which seem like philosophic propositions. Thus Thales, amongst others, has explained that the eclipse of sun and moon is due to the intervention of the moon or earth. This is called a theorem. Pythagoras found out the principle of the harmony of sounds. Others have had ideas about the stars: the heavens were supposed to be composed of perforated metal, by which we see throughout the empyrean region, the eternal fire which surrounds the world. Such propositions as products of the understanding, do not belong to the history of Philosophy, although they imply that the merely sensuous gaze has been left behind, as also the representation of those objects by the imagination only. Earth and heaven thus become unpeopled with gods, because the understanding distinguishes things in their outward and natural qualities from Mind.
In a later time the epoch of the revival in the sciences is as noteworthy in this respect. General principles regarding the state, &c., were given expression to, and in them a philosophic side cannot be mistaken. To this place the philosophic systems of Hobbes and Descartes belong: the writings of the latter contain philosophic principles, but his Philosophy of Nature is quite empirical. Hugo Grotius composed an international law in which what was historically held by the people as law, the _consensus gentium_, was a main element. Though, earlier, medicine was a collection of isolated facts and a theosophic combination mixed up with astrology, &c. (it is not so long ago since cures were effected by sacred relics), a mode of regarding nature came into vogue according to which men went forth to discover the laws and forces of Nature. The _à priori_ reasoning regarding natural things, according to the metaphysics of the Scholastic Philosophy or to Religion, has now been given up. The Philosophy of Newton contains nothing but Natural Science, that is, the knowledge of the laws, forces, and general constitution of Nature, derived from observation and from experience. However much this may seem to be contrary to the principle of Philosophy, it has in common with it the fact that the bases of both are universal, and still further that _I_ have made this experience, that it rests on my consciousness and obtains its significance through me.
This form is in its general aspect antagonistic to the positive, and has come forward as particularly opposed to Religion and to that which is positive in it. If, in the Middle Ages, the Church had its dogmas as universal truths, man, on the contrary, has now obtained from the testimony of his “own thought,” feeling and ideas, a mistrust of these. It is merely to be remarked of this that “my own thought” is in itself a pleonasm, because each individual must think for himself, and no one can do so for another. Similarly this principle has turned against the recognized constitutions and has sought different principles instead, by them to correct the former. Universal principles of the State have now been laid down, while earlier, because religion was positive, the ground of obedience of subjects to princes and of all authority were also so. Kings, as the anointed of the Lord, in the sense that Jewish kings were so, derived their power from God, and had to give account to Him alone, because all authority is given by God. So far theology and jurisprudence were on the whole fixed and positive sciences, wherever this positive character might have been derived. Against this external authority reflection has been brought to bear, and thus, especially in England, the source of public and civil law became no longer mere authority derived from God like the Mosaic Law. For the authority of kings other justification was sought, such as the end implied in the State, the good of the people. This forms quite another source of truth, and it is opposed to that which is revealed, given and positive. This substitution of another ground than that of authority has been called philosophizing.
The knowledge was then a knowledge of what is finite—the world of the content of knowledge. Because this content proceeded through the personal insight of human reason, man has become independent in his actions. This independence of the Mind is the true moment of Philosophy, although the Notion of Philosophy through this formal determination, which limits it to finite objects, has not yet been exhausted. This independent thought is respected, has been called human wisdom or worldly wisdom, for it has had what is earthly as its object, and it took its origin in the world. This was the meaning of Philosophy, and men did rightly to call it worldly wisdom. Frederick von Schlegel revived this by-name for Philosophy, and desired to indicate by it that what concerns higher spheres, such as religion, must be kept apart; and he had many followers. Philosophy, indeed, occupies itself with finite things, but, according to Spinoza, as resting in the divine Idea: it has thus the same end as religion. To the finite sciences which are now separated also from Philosophy, the Churches objected that they led men away from God, since they have as objects only what is finite. This defect in them, conceived of from the point of view of content, leads us to the second department allied to Philosophy,—that is, to Religion.
b. _Relation of Philosophy to Religion.
_As the first department of knowledge was related to Philosophy principally by means of formal and independent knowledge, Religion, though in its content quite different from this first kind or sphere of knowledge, is through it related to Philosophy. Its object is not the earthly and worldly, but the infinite. In the case of art and still more in that of Religion, Philosophy has in common a content composed entirely of universal objects; they constitute the mode in which the highest Idea is existent for the unphilosophical feeling, the perceiving and imagining consciousness. Inasmuch as in the progress of culture in time the manifestation of Religion precedes the appearance of Philosophy, this circumstance must really be taken account of, and the conditions requisite for beginning the History of Philosophy have to depend on this, because it has to be shown in how far what pertains to Religion is to be excluded from it, and that a commencement must not be made with Religion.
In Religion, races of men have undoubtedly expressed their idea of the nature of the world, the substance of nature and of intellect and the relation of man thereto. Absolute Being is here the object of their consciousness; and as such, is for them pre-eminently the “other,” a “beyond,” nearer or further off, more or less friendly or frightful and alarming. In the act and forms of worship this opposition is removed by man, and he raises himself to the consciousness of unity with his Being, to the feeling of, or dependence on, the Grace of God, in that God has reconciled mankind to Himself. In conception, with the Greeks, for instance, this existence is to man one which is already in and for itself and friendly, and thus worship is but the enjoyment of this unity. This existence is now reason which is existent in and for itself, the universal and concrete substance, the Mind whose first cause is objective to itself in consciousness; it thus is a representation of this last in which not only reason in general, but the universal infinite reason is. We must, therefore, comprehend Religion, as Philosophy, before everything else, which means to know and apprehend it in reason; for it is the work of self-revealing reason and is the highest form of reason. Such ideas as that priests have framed a people’s Religion in fraud and self-interest are consequently absurd; to regard Religion as an arbitrary matter or a deception is as foolish as it is perverted. Priests have often profaned Religion—the possibility of which is a consequence of the external relations and temporal existence of Religion. It can thus, in this external connection, be laid hold of here and there, but because it is Religion, it is really that which stands firm against finite ends and their complications and constitutes a region exalted high above them. This region of Mind is really the Holy place of Truth itself, the Holy place in which are dissolved the remaining illusions of the sensuous world, of finite ideas and ends, and of the sphere of opinion and caprice.