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Later, Shakespeare made the laughing fool speak the most tragic lines. ... in the realm of thought, far surpassed in terrorism Maximilian Robespierre, ...
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Religion and philosophy in
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Religion and philosophy in
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" KANSAS CITY, MO. PUBLIC LIBRARY
Mark this, ye proud men of action : ye are nothing but
unconscious hodmen of the men of thought who, often in
humblest stillness, have appointed you your inevitable task.
Maximilian Eobespierre was merely the hand of Jeau
Jacques Eousseau, the bloody hand that drew from the
womb of time the body whose soul Eousseau had created.
May not the restless anxiety that troubled the life of Jean
Jacques have caused such stirrings within him that he
already foreboded the kind of accoucheur that was needed
to bring his thought living into the world ? *
Old Fontenelle may have been right when he said : " If
* This paragraph is wanting in the French version. TR.
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY IN GERMANY. 107
I held all the truths of the universe in my hand, I
would be very careful not to open it." I, for my part,
think otherwise. If I held all the truths of the world in
my hand, I might perhaps beseech you instantly to cut
off that hand ; but, in any case, I should not long hold it
closed. I was not born to be a gaoler of thoughts; by
Heaven! I would set them free. What though they were to
incarnate themselves in the most hazardous realities, what
though they were to range through all lands like a mad
bacchanalian procession, what though they were to crush
with their thyrsus our most innocent flowers, what though
they were to invade our hospitals and chase from his bed
the old sick world my heart would bleed, no doubt, and I
myself would suffer hurt thereby ! For alas ! I too am part
of this old sick world, and the poet says truly, one may
mock at his crutches yet not be able to walk any better
for that. I am the most grievously sick of you all, and
am the more to be pitied since I know what health is ; but
you do not know it, you whom I envy ; you are capable of
dying without perceiving your dying condition. Yea, many
of you are already long since dead, though maintaining that
your real life is just beginning. When I try to dispel
such a delusion, then you are angry with me and rail at
me, and, more horrible still, the dead rush upon and mock
at me, and more loathsome to me than their insults is
the smell of their putrefaction. Hence, ye spectres ! I
am about to speak of a man whose mere name has the
might of an exorcism; I speak of Immanuel Kant.
It is said that night-wandering spirits are filled with
terror at sight of the headsman's axe. With what mighty
fear, then, must they be stricken when there is held up
to them Kant's " Critique of Pure Reason " ! This is the
sword that slew deism in Germany.
To speak frankly, you French have been tame and
moderate compared with us Germans. At most, you could
io8 RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY IN GERMANY.
but kill a king, and he had already lost his head before
you guillotined him. For accompaniment to such deed
you must needs cause such a drumming and shrieking
and stamping of feet that the whole universe trembled.
To compare Maximilian Eobespierre with Immanuel Kant
is to confer too high an honour upon the former. Maxi-
milian Robespierre, the great citizen of the Eue Saint
Honore, had, it is true, his sudden attacks of destructive-
ness when it was a question of the monarchy, and his
frame was violently convulsed when the fit of regicidal
epilepsy was on ; but as soon as it came to be a question
about the Supreme Being, he wiped the white froth from
his lips, washed the blood from his hands, donned his blue
Sunday coat with silver buttons, and stuck a nosegay in
the bosom of his broad vest.
The history of Immanuel Kant's life is difficult to por-
tray, for he had neither life nor history. He led a mecha-
nical, regular, almost abstract bachelor existence in a little
retired street of Konigsberg, an old town on the north-
eastern frontier of Germany. I do not believe that the
great clock of the cathedral performed in a more passion-
less and methodical manner its daily routine than did
its townsman, Immanuel Kant. Rising in the morning,
coffee-drinking, writing, reading lectures, dining, walking,
everything had its appointed time, and the neighbours
knew that it was exactly half-past three o'clock when
Immanuel Kant stepped forth from his house in his grey,
tight-fitting coat, with his Spanish cane in his hand, and
betook himself to the little linden avenue called after
him to this day the " Philosopher's Walk." Summer and
winter he walked up and down it eight times, and when
the weather was dull or heavy clouds prognosticated rain,
the townspeople beheld his servant, the old Lampe, trudg-
ing anxiously behind him with a big umbrella under his
arm, like an image of Providence.
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY IN GERMANY. 109
What a strange contrast did this man's outward life
present to his destructive, world-annihilating thoughts!
In sooth, had the citizens of Konigsberg had the least
presentiment of the full significance of his ideas, they
would have felt a far more awful dread at the presence of
this man than at the sight of an executioner, who can but
kill the body. But the worthy folk saw in him nothing
more than a Professor of Philosophy, and as he passed
at his customary hour, they greeted him in a friendly
manner and set their watches by him.
But though Immanuel Kant, the arch-destroyer in the
realm of thought, far surpassed in terrorism Maximilian
Robespierre, he had many similarities with the latter,
which induce a comparison between the two men. In
the first place, we find in both the same inexorable, keen,
poesyless, sober integrity. We likewise find in both the
same talent of suspicion, only that in the one it mani-
fested itself in the direction of thought and was called
criticism, whilst in the other it was directed against man-
kind and was styled republicau virtue. But both pre-
sented in the highest degree the type of the narrow-minded
citizen. Nature had destined them for weighing out
coffee and sugar, but fate decided that they should weigh
out other things, and into the scales of the one it laid a
king, into the scales of the other a God. . . . And they
both gave the correct weight !
The " Critique of Pure Eeason " is Kant's principal
work ; and as none of his other writings is of equal im-
portance, in speaking of it we must give it the right of
preference. This book appeared in 1781, but, as already
said, did not become generally known till 1789. At the
time of its publication it was quite overlooked, except for
two insignificant notices, and it was not till a later period
that public attention was directed to this great book by
the articles of Schiitz, Schultz, and Eeinhold. The cause
no RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY IN GERMANY.
of this tardy recognition undoubtedly lay in the unusual
form and bad style in which the work is written. As
regards his style, Kant merits severer censure than any
other philosopher, more especially when we compare this
with his former and better manner of writing. The
recently published collection of his minor works contains
his first attempts, and we are surprised to find in these an
excellent and often very witty style. These little treatises
were trilled forth while their author ruminated over his
great work. There is a gleefulness about them like that
of a soldier tranquilly arming for a combat in which he
promises himself certain victory. Especially remarkable
amongst them are his " Universal Natural History and
Theory of the Heavens," composed as early as 1755 ; " Ob-
servations on the Emotions of the Sublime and Beautiful,"
written ten years later; and " Dreams of a Ghostseer," full
of admirable humour after the manner of the French
essay. Kant's wit as displayed in these pamphlets is of
quite a peculiar sort. The wit clings to the thought, and
in spite of its tenuity is thus enabled to reach a satis-
factory height. Without such support wit, be it ever so
robust, cannot be successful; like a vine- tendril wanting
a prop, it can only creep along the ground to rot there
with all its most precious fruits.
But why did Kant write his " Critique of Pure Reason "
in such a colourless, dry, packing-paper style ? I fancy
that, having rejected the mathematical form of the Cartesio-
Leibnitzo-Wolfian school, he feared that science might lose
something of its dignity by expressing itself in light,
attractive, and agreeable tones. He therefore gave it a
stiff, abstract form, which coldly repelled all familiarity
on the part of intellects of the lower order. He wished
haughtily to separate himself from the popular philosophers
of his time, who aimed at the most citizen-like clearness,
and so clothed his thoughts in a courtly and frigid official
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY IN GERMANY, in
dialect. Herein he shows himself a true philistine. But
it might also be that Kant needed for the carefully
measured march of his ideas a language similarly precise,
and that he was not in a position to create a better. It is
only genius that has a new word for a new thought.
Immanuel Kant, however, was no genius. Conscious of
this defect, Kant, like the worthy Maximilian, showed
himself all the more mistrustful of genius, and went so
far as to maintain, in his " Critique of the Faculty of
Judgment/' that genius has no business with scientific
thought, and that its action ought to be relegated to the
domain of art.
The heavy, buckram style of Kant's chief work has
been the source of much mischief ; for brainless imitators
aped him in his external form, and hence arose amongst
us the superstition that no one can be a philosopher who
writes well. The mathematical form, however, could not,
after the days of Kant, reappear in philosophy ; he has
mercilessly passed sentence of death upon it in his
"Critique of Pure Beason." The mathematical form in
philosophy, he says, is good for nothing save the building
of houses of cards, in the same way that the philosophic
form in mathematics produces nothing but twaddle, for
in philosophy there can be no definitions such as those
in mathematics, where the definitions are not discursive
but intuitive, that is to say, capable of being demon-
strated by inspection ; whilst what are called definitions
in philosophy are only tentatively, hypothetically put
forth, the real definition appearing only at the close, as
result.
How comes it. that philosophers display so strong a
predilection for the mathematical form ? This predilec-
tion dates from the time of Pythagoras, who designated
the principles of things by numbers. This was the idea
of a genius : all that is sensible and finite is stripped off
H2 RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY IN GERMANY.
in a number, and yet it denotes something determined,
and the relation of this thing to another determined
thing, which last, designated in turn by a number, re-
ceives the same insensible and infinite character. In this
respect numbers resemble ideas that preserve the same
character and relation to one another. We can indicate
by numbers in a very striking manner ideas, as they are
produced in our mind and in nature ; but the number still
remains the sign of the idea, it is not the idea itself.
The master is always conscious of this distinction, but the
scholar forgets it, and transmits to other scholars at second
hand merely a numerical hieroglyph, dead ciphers, which
are repeated with parrot-like scholastic pride, but of which
the living significance is lost. This applies likewise to
the other methods of mathematical demonstration. The
intellect in its eternal mobility suffers no arrest; and
just as little can it be fixed down by lines, triangles,
squares, and circles, as by numbers. Thought can neither
be calculated nor measured.
As my chief duty is to facilitate in France the study
of German philosophy, I always dwell most strongly on
the external difficulties that are apt to dismay a stranger
who has not already been made aware of them. I would
draw the special attention of those who desire to make
Frenchmen acquainted with Kant to the fact, that it is
possible to abstract from his philosophy that portion
which serves merely to refute the absurdities of the
Wolfian philosophy. This polemic, constantly reappear-
ing, will only tend to produce confusion in the minds of
Frenchmen, and can be of no utility to them.
The "Critique of Pure Eeason " is, as I have said,
Kant's principal work, and his other writings are in a
measure superfluous, or may at least be considered as
commentaries. The social importance that attaches to
his chief work will be apparent from what follows.
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY IN GERMANY. 113
The philosophers who preceded Kant reflected, doubt-
less, on the origin of our cognitions, and followed, as we
have seen, two different routes, according to their view
of ideas as a priori or as a posteriori ; but concerning the
faculty of knowing, concerning the extent and limits of
this faculty, they occupied themselves less. Now this
was the task that Kant set before himself ; he submitted
the faculty of knowing to a merciless investigation, he
sounded all the depths of this faculty, he ascertained all
its limits. In this investigation he certainly discovered
that about many things, wherewith formerly we supposed
ourselves to be most intimately acquainted, we can know
nothing. This was very mortifying; but it has always
been useful to know of what things we can know nothing.
He who warns us against a useless journey performs as great
a service for us as he who points out to us the true path.
Kant proves to us that we know nothing about things
as they are in and by themselves, but that we have a
knowledge of them only in so far as they are reflected in
our minds. We are therefore just like the prisoners of
whose condition Plato draws such an afflicting picture
in the seventh book of his Republic. These wretched
beings, chained neck and thigh in such a manner that
they cannot turn their heads about, are seated within a
roofless prison, into which there comes from above a
certain amount of light. This light, however, is the light
from a fire, the flame of which rises up behind them, and
indeed is separated from them only by a little wall.
Along the outer side of this wall are walking men bearing
all sorts of statues, images in wood and stone, and con-
versing with one another. Now the poor prisoners can
see nothing of these men, who are not tall enough to
overtop the wall ; and of the statues, which rise above the
wall, they see only the shadows flitting along the side of
the wall opposite them. The shadows, however, they take
114 RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY IN GERMANY.
for real objects, and, deceived by the echo of their prison,
believe that it is the shadows that are conversing.
With the appearance of Kant former systems of philo-
sophy, which had merely sniffed about the external aspect
of things, assembling and classifying their characteristics,
ceased to exist. Kant led investigation back to the human
intellect, and inquired what the latter had to reveal. Not
without reason, therefore, did he compare his philosophy
to the method of Copernicus. Formerly, when men con-
ceived the world as standing still, and the sun as revolv-
ing round it, astronomical calculations failed to agree
accurately. But when Copernicus made the sun stand
still and the earth revolve round it, behold ! everything
accorded admirably. So formerly reason, like the sun,
moved round the universe of phenomena, and sought to
throw light upon it. But Kant bade reason, the sun,
stand still, and the universe of phenomena now turns
round, and is illuminated the moment it comes within the
region of the intellectual orb.
These few words regarding the task that presented itself
to Kant will suffice to show that I consider that section of
his book wherein he treats of phenomena and noumena as
the most important part, as the central point, of his philo-
sophy. Kant, in effect, distinguishes between the appear-
ances of things and things themselves. As we can know
nothing of objects except in so far as they manifest them-
selves to us through their appearance, and as objects do
not exhibit themselves to us as they are in and by them-
selves, Kant gives the name phenomena to objects as
they appear to us, and noumena to objects as they are in
themselves. We know things, therefore, only as pheno-
mena ; we cannot know them as noumena. The latter are
purely problematic ; we can neither say that they exist
nor that they do not exist. The word noumena has been
correlated with the word phenomena merely to enable us
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY IN GERMANY. 115
to speak of things in so far as they are cognisable by us,
without occupying our judgment about things that are not
cognisable by us. Kant did not therefore, as do many
teachers whom I will not name, make a distinction of
objects into phenomena and noumena, into things that for
us exist and into things that for us do not exist. This
would be an Irish bull in philosophy. He wished merely
to express a notion of limitation.
God, according to Kant, is a nournen. As a result of
his argument, this ideal and transcendental being, hitherto
called God, is a mere fiction.* It has arisen from a
natural illusion. Kant shows that we can know nothing
regarding this noumen, regarding God, and that all reason-
able proof of his existence is impossible. The words of
Dante, " Leave all hope behind ! " may be inscribed over
this portion of the " Critique of Pure Reason."
My readers will, I think, gladly exempt me from at-
tempting a popular elucidation of that portion of his work
in which Kant treats " of the arguments of speculative
reason in favour of the existence of a Supreme Being."
Although the formal refutation of these arguments occu-
pies but a small space, and is not taken in hand till the
second part of the book is reached, there is already a very
evident intention of leading up to this refutation, which
forms one of the main points of the work. It connects
itself with the "Critique of all Speculative Theology,"
wherein the last phantoms of deism are put to flight. I
cannot help remarking that Kant, in attacking the three
principal kinds of evidence in favour of the existence of
God, namely, the ontological, the cosmological, and the
physico-theological, whilst successful, according to my
opinion, in refuting the latter two, fails with regard to the
first. I am not aware whether the above terms are under-
stood in this country, and I therefore quote the passage
* In the Prench version, " is only an assumption." TB.
n6 RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY IN GERMANY.
from the " Critique of Pure Season " in which Kant for-
mulates the distinction between them.
" There are but three kinds of proof possible to specu-
lative reason of the existence of God. All the routes that
may be selected with this end in view start, either from
definite experience and the peculiar properties of the
external world, as revealed by experience, and ascend from
it according to the laws of causality up to the supreme
cause above the world ; or, they rest merely on an indefi-
nite experience, as, for example, on an existence or being
of some kind or other ; or, lastly, they make an abstraction
from all experience, and arrive at a conclusion entirely a
priori from pure ideas of the existence of the supreme
cause. The first of these is the physico-theological proof,
the second the cosmological, and the third the ontological.
Other proofs there are none, nor can other proofs exist."
After repeated and careful study of Kant's chief work,
I fancied myself able to recognise everywhere visible in
it his polemic against these proofs of the existence of
God ; and of this polemic I might speak at greater length
were I not restrained by a religious sentiment. The mere
discussion by any one of the existence of God causes me
to feel a strange disquietude, an uneasy dread such as I
once experienced in visiting New Bedlam in London,
when, for a moment losing sight of my guide, I was sur-
rounded by madmen. " God is all that is," and doubt of
His existence is doubt of life itself, it is death.
The more blameworthy any dispute regarding the exist-
ence of God may be, the more praiseworthy is meditation
on the nature of God. Such meditation is a true worship
of God ; the soul is thereby detached from the perishable
and finite, and attains to consciousness of innate love and
of the harmony of the universe. It is this consciousness
that sends a thrill through the heart of the emotional man
in the act of prayer or in the contemplation of the sacred
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY IN GERMANY. 117
symbols ; and the thinker realises this holy fervour in the
exercise of that sublime faculty of the mind called reason,
a faculty whose highest function is to inquire into the
nature of God. Men of specially religious temperament
concern themselves with this problem from childhood
upwards; they are mysteriously troubled about it even
at the first dawnings of reason.* The author of these
pages is most joyfully conscious of having possessed this
early primitive religious feeling, and it has never forsaken
him. God was always the beginning and the end of all
my thoughts. If I now inquire: What is God ? what is
his nature? as a little child I had already inquired:
How is God ? what is he like ? In that childish time I
could gaze upwards at the sky during whole days, and
was sadly vexed at evening because I never caught a
glimpse of God's most holy countenance, but saw only the
grey silly grimaces of the clouds. I was quite puzzled
over the astronomical lore with which in the " enlighten-
ment period " even the youngest children were tormented,
and there was no end to my amazement on learning that all
those thousand millions of stars were spheres as large and
as beautiful as our own earth, and that over all this glitter-
ing throng of worlds a single God ruled. I recollect once
seeing God in a dream far above in the most distant
firmament. He was looking contentedly out of a little
window in the sky, a devout hoary-headed being with a
small Jewish beard, and he was scattering forth myriads
of seed-corns, which, as they fell from heaven, burst open
in the infinitude of space, and expanded to vast dimen-
sions till they became actual, radiant, blossoming, peopled
worlds, each one as large as our own globe. I could never
forget this countenance, and often in dreams I used to
see the cheerful-looking old man sprinkling forth the
* The remainder of this paragraph, with the first two sentences of the
succeeding one, is omitted in the French version. TJU
ii8 RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY IN GERMANY.
world-seeds from his little window in the sky; once I
even saw him clucking like our maid when she threw
down for the hens their barley. I could only see how the
falling seed-corns expanded into great shining orbs ; but
the great hens that may by chance have been waiting
about with eager open bills to be fed with the falling orbs
I could not see.
You smile, dear reader, at the notion of the big hens.
Yet this childish notion is not so very different from the
view of the most advanced deists. In the attempt to
provide a conception of an extra-mundane God, orient
and Occident have exhausted themselves in hyperbole.
The imagination of deists has, however, vainly tormented
itself with the infinitude of time and space. It is here
that their impotence, the inadequacy of their cosmology,
and the untenableness of their explanation of the nature
of God becomes fully apparent. We are not greatly dis-
tressed, therefore, at beholding the subversion of their
explanation. Kant has actually wrought this affliction
upon them by refuting their demonstration of the exist-
ence of God.
Nor would the vindication of the ontological proof
specially benefit deism, for this proof is equally available
for pantheism. To render my meaning more intelligible,
I may remark that the ontological proof is the one em-
ployed by Descartes, and that long before his time, in the
Middle Ages, Anselm of Canterbury had expressed it in
the form of an affecting prayer. Indeed, St. Augustin
may be said to have already made use of the ontological
proof in the second book of his work, " De Libero Arbi-
trio."
I refrain, as I have said, from all popular discussion of
Kant's polemic against these proofs. Let it suffice to give
an assurance that since his time deism has vanished from
the realm of speculative reason. It may, perhaps, be
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY IN GERMANY. 119
several centuries yet before this melancholy notice of
decease gets universally bruited about ; we, however, have
long since put on mourning. De Profundis !
You fancy, then, that we may now go home! By
my life, no ! there is yet a piece to be played ; after the
tragedy comes the farce. Up to this point Immanuel
Kant has pursued the path of inexorable philosophy ; he
has stormed heaven and put the whole garrison to the
edge of the sword; the ontological, cosmological, and
physico-theological bodyguards lie there lifeless ; Deity
itself, deprived of demonstration, has succumbed ; there
is now no All-mercifulness, no fatherly kindness, no other-
world reward for renunciation in this world, the immorta-
lity of the soul lies in its last agony you can hear its
groans and death-rattle ; and old Lampe is standing by
with his umbrella under his arm, an afflicted spectator of
the scene, tears and sweat-drops of terror dropping from
his countenance. Then Immanuel Kant relents and
shows that he is not merely a great philosopher but also
a good man ; he reflects, and half good-naturedly, half
ironically, he says : " Old Lampe must have a God,
otherwise the poor fellow can never be happy. Now,
man ought to be happy in this world ; practical reason
says so ; well, I am quite willing that practical reason
should also guarantee the existence of God." As the
result of this argument, Kant distinguishes between the
theoretical reason and the practical reason, and by means
of the latter, as with a magician's wand, he revivifies
deism, which theoretical reason had killed.
But is it not conceivable that Kant brought about this
resurrection, not merely for the sake of old Lampe, but
through fear of the police ? Or did he act from sincere
conviction ? Was not his object in destroying all evidence
for the existence of God to show us how embarrassing it
might be to know nothing about God ? In doing so, he
120 RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY IN GERMANY.
acted almost as sagely as a Westphalian friend of mine,
-who smashed all the lanterns in the Grohnder Street in
Gottingen, and then proceeded to deliver to us in the dark
a long lecture on the practical necessity of lanterns, which
he had theoretically broken in order to show how, without
them, we could see nothing.
I have already said that on its appearance the " Critique
of Pure Eeason " did not cause the slightest sensation, and it
was not till several years later, after certain clear-sighted
philosophers had written elucidations of it, that public
attention was aroused regarding the book. In the year
1789, however, nothing else was talked of in Germany but
the philosophy of Kant, about which were poured forth in
abundance commentaries, chrestomathies, interpretations,
estimates, apologies, and so forth. We need only glance
through the first philosophic catalogue at hand, and the
innumerable works having reference to Kant will amply
testify to the intellectual movement that originated with
this single man. In some it exhibited itself as an ardent
enthusiasm, in others as an acrid loathing, in many as a
gaping curiosity regarding the result of this intellectual
revolution. We had popular riots in the world of thought>
just as you had in the material world, and over the demoli-
tion of ancient dogmatism we grew as excited as you did
at the storming of the Bastille. There was also but a
handful of old pensioners left for the defence of dogmatism,
that is, the philosophy of Wolf. It was a revolution, and
one not wanting in horrors. Amongst the party of the
past, the really good Christians showed least indignation
at these horrors. Yea, they desired even greater, in order
that the measure of iniquity might be full, and the
counter-revolution be more speedily accomplished as a
necessary reaction. We had pessimists in philosophy as
you had in politics. As in France there were people who
maintained that Robespierre was the agent of Pitt, with us
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY IN GERMANY. 121
there were many who went so far in their wilful blindness
as to persuade themselves that Kant was in secret alliance
with them, and that he had destroyed all philosophic
proofs of the existence of God merely in order to convince
the world that man can never arrive at a knowledge of
God by the help of reason, and must therefore hold to
revealed religion.
Kant brought about this great intellectual movement
less by the subject-matter of his writings than by the
critical spirit that pervaded them, a spirit that now began
to force its way into all sciences. It laid hold of all
constituted authority. Even poetry did not escape its
influence. Schiller, for example, was a strong Kantist,
and his artistic views are impregnated with the spirit of
the philosophy of Kant. By reason of its dry, abstract
character, this philosophy was eminently hurtful to polite
literature and the fine arts. Fortunately it did not inter-
fere in the art of cookery.
The German people is not easily set in motion ; but let
it be once forced into any path and it will follow it to its
termination with the most dogged perseverance. Thus we
exhibited our character in matters of religion, thus also
we now acted in philosophy. Shall we continue to
advance as consistently in politics?
Germany was drawn into the path of philosophy by
Kant, and philosophy became a national cause. A brilliant
troop of great thinkers suddenly sprang up on German
soil, as if called into being by magical art. If German
philosophy should some day find, as the French revolution
has found, its Thiers and its Mignet, its history will afford
as remarkable reading as the works of these authors.
Germans will study it with pride, and Frenchmen with
admiration.
Among the followers of Kant, John Gottlieb Fichte
soon rose into pre-eminence.
122 RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY IN GERMANY.
I almost despair of being able to convey an accurate
impression of this man. In the case of Kant we had
merely a book to examine ; but here, besides the book, we
have to take account of the man. In this man thought
and purpose are one, and in this splendid unity they affect
the contemporary world. We have therefore to investi-
gate not a philosophy merely, but also the type by which
that philosophy is conditioned, and in order thoroughly to
comprehend this twofold influence we should have to
pass in review the situation of this epoch. What a wide-
reaching task ! We shall, no doubt, be readily excused for
offering merely an imperfect outline.
At the outset there is the greatest difficulty in stating
explicitly the nature of Fichte's ideas. We have here to
encounter peculiar obstacles, obstacles connected not only
with the subject-matter but also with the form and
method of its presentation two things with which we
are specially desirous of making foreigners acquainted.
Let us begin, then, with the method of Fiehte. At first
he borrowed the method of Kaut, but it soon underwent a
change, resulting from the nature of the subject. Kant
had merely to produce a critique, that is to say, some-
thing negative ; whilst Fiehte had by and by to develop a
system, that is, something positive. This want of a defi-
nite system in the philosophy of Kant was the reason why
it was sometimes refused the name philosophy. As regards
Immanuel Kant himself, there was justice in this ; but
not as regards the Kantists, who constructed from Kant's
propositions quite a sufficient number of definite systems.
In his earlier writings, Fiehte remained, as I have said,
quite faithful to the method of his master, so much so
that his first treatise, which was published anonymously,
was attributed to Kant. But when Fiehte afterwards
produced a system he was seized with an ardent and per-
sistent passion for construction, and after constructing the
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY IN GERMANY. 123
universe he sets about demonstrating, in all its aspects,
with the same ardour and persistency, that which he has
constructed. Whether constructing or demonstrating,
Fichte manifests, so to speak, an abstract passion. As in
his system, so, soon afterwards in his exposition, subjec-
tivity is dominant. Kant, on the other hand, stretches
out thought before him, analyses it, dissects it down to
its minutest fibrils, and his " Critique of Pure Eeason " is
a kind of anatomical theatre of the human intellect; he
himself, however, stands by, cold and insensible, like a
true surgeon.
The form of Fichte's writings resembles his method ; it
is living, but it has also all the faults of life : it is restless
and confused. That he may always remain thoroughly
animated, Fichte disdains the customary terminology of
philosophers, which seems to him a dead thing; but the
effect of this is to make him still less comprehensible.
About intelligibility in general he had quite a peculiar
caprice. As long as Reinhold was of the same opinion
with him, Fichte declared that no one understood him
better than Reinhold. But when the latter differed from
him in opinion, Fichte declared that he had never been
understood by him. When he himself took a different
view from Kant, he had it put in print that Kant did not
understand himself. I am here touching upon the comical
aspect of our philosophers, who are perpetually lamenting
that they are misunderstood. When Hegel was lying on
his deathbed, he said : " Only one man has understood
me," but shortly afterwards he added fretfully : " And
even he did not understand me."
Considered as to its substance, its intrinsic value, the
philosophy of Fichte is of no great significance. It has
afforded society no result. Only in so far as it exhibits
above all other systems one of the most remarkable phases
of German philosophy, only in so far as it attests the
124 RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY IN GERMANY.
sterility of idealism in its last consequences, and only in
so far as it forms the necessary transition to the philosophy
of our day, does the substance of Fichte's doctrine possess
a certain interest. This doctrine, being then of more im-
portance in an historical and scientific than in a social
aspect, I shall merely indicate it in a few words.
The question proposed by Fichte is, What grounds have
we for assuming that our conceptions of objects correspond
with objects external to us ? And to this question he
offers the solution: All things have reality only in our
mind.
The " Critique of Pure Eeason " was Kant's chief work,
the " Theory of Knowledge " 9 was the chief work of
Fichte. The latter book is a kind of continuation of the
former. The " Theory of Knowledge " likewise refers the
intellect back to itself. But where Kant analyses, Fichte
constructs. The " Theory of Knowledge " opens with an
abstract formula (1 = 1); it re-creates the world out of
the recesses of mind ; it fits the disjointed parts together
again ; intelligence retraces its steps over the road it had
travelled towards abstraction till it regains the world of
phenomena. Thereafter reason is enabled to declare the
phenomenal world to be a necessary operation of intelli-
gence.
The philosophy of Fichte also presents the peculiar
difficulty that it requires the mind to observe itself in the
midst of its activity; the Ego is to investigate its own
intellectual acts during the process of thinking ; thought
is to play the spy on itself whilst it thinks, whilst it grows
gradually warmer until at last it is boiling. This opera-
tion reminds us of the monkey seated on the hearth
before a copper kettle cooking its own tail ; for it is of
opinion that the true art of cookery consists not merely
in the objective act of cooking, but also in the subjective
consciousness of the process of cooking.
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY IN GERMANY. 125
It is a singular circumstance that the philosophy of
Fichte has always had to endure much from satire. I
once saw a caricature representing a Fichtean goose. The
poor bird has a liver so large that it no longer knows
whether it is goose or liver. On its belly is inscribed
/-/. Jean Paul has most wickedly quizzed the Fichtean
philosophy in a book entitled Clams Fichteana. That
idealism pursued to its ultimate consequences should end
by denying even the reality of matter seemed, to the great
mass of the public, to be carrying the joke too far. We
grew rather merry over the Fichtean Ego, which produced
by its mere thinking the whole external world. The
laughter of our wits was increased through a misappre-
hension that became too popular to permit of my passing
it over in silence. The great mass really supposed that
the Ego of Fichte was the Ego of Johann Gottlieb Fichte,
and that this individual Ego implied a negation of all
other existences. What an impertinence ! exclaimed the
worthy folk ; this fellow does not believe that we exist,
we who are much more corpulent than himself, and who,
as burgomasters and bailiffs, are actually his superiors !
The ladies inquired, Does he not at least believe in the
existence of his wife ? No ! And Madam Fichte suffers
this!
The Ego of Fichte, however, is not the individual but
the universal Ego, the world-Ego awakened to self-con-
sciousness. The Fichtean process of thought is not the
thinking act of an individual, of a certain person called
Johann Gottlieb Fichte ; it is rather the universal thought
manifesting itself in an individual. As we say, " It rains,"
" it lightens," and so on ; so Fichte ought not to say, " I
think," but, " it thinks," " the universal world- thought
thinks in me."
In a parallel between the French revolution and Ger-
man philosophy I once compared, more in jest than in
126 RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY IN GERMANY.
earnest, Fichte to Napoleon. But there are, in fact, certain
remarkable analogies between them. After the Kantists
had accomplished their work of terrorism and destruction,
Fichte appeared, as Napoleon appeared after the Conven-
tion had demolished the whole past by the help of another
sort of Critique of Pure Eeason. Napoleon and Fichte
represent the great inexorable Ego for which thought and
action are one ; and the colossal structures raised by both
men testify to a colossal will. But through the bound-
lessness of this will their structures soon fall to the
ground, and both the " Theory of Knowledge " and the
Empire crumble to pieces and disappear as quickly as they
were reared.
The Empire is now nothing more than matter of history,
but the commotion caused by the emperor in the world
has not yet calmed down, and from this commotion our
present Europe draws its vitality. It is the same with
the philosophy of Fichte ; it has completely perished, but
men's minds are still agitated by the thoughts that found
a voice in Fichte, and the after-effect of his teaching is
incalculable. Even supposing all transcendental idealism
to be an error, still the writings of Fichte are animated
by a proud independence, by a love of liberty, by a virile
dignity that have exercised, especially on the young, a
wholesome influence. The Ego of Fichte was in complete
accord with his inflexible, stubborn, stern character. The
notion of an Ego so all-powerful could perhaps germinate
only in such a character, and such a character intertwin-
ing its roots about such a doctrine could not but become
more inflexible, more stubborn, more stern.
With what aversion must this man have been regarded
by aimless sceptics, by frivolous ecclectics, and by mode-
rates of all shades ! His whole life was a combat. The
story of his youth, like that of almost all our distinguished
men, is the record of a series of afflictions. Poverty sits
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY IN GERMANY. 127
by their cradle and rocks them up to manhood, and this
meagre nurse remains their faithful companion through
life.
Nothing is more touching than the sight of the proud-
willed Fichte struggling miserably through the world by
the aid of tutorship. Nor can he obtain even thus the
bitter bread of servitude in his own country, but has to
migrate to Warsaw. There the old story repeats itself ;
the tutor displeases the gracious lady of the house, or
perhaps only the ungracious lady's-maid. He cannot
scrape a leg with sufficient gentility, is not French enough,
and is no longer judged worthy to superintend the educa-
tion of a young Polish squire. Johann Gottlieb Fichte is
dismissed like a lackey, receives from his dissatisfied
master hardly the meagre expenses of his journey, leaves
Warsaw and betakes himself, full of youthful enthusiasm,
to Konigsberg, in order to make the acquaintance of Kant.
The meeting of these two men is in every respect note-
worthy. Perhaps I can present no clearer idea of their
everyday life and circumstances than by citing a frag-
ment from Fichte's journal, to be found in a biography of
him, recently published by his son.*
" On the twenty-fifth of June I set out for Konigsberg
with a carrier of this town, and arrived there, without
experiencing any remarkable incident, on the first of July.
The fourth. Visited Kant, who did not, however, receive
me with any special distinction. I attended his lecture
as an invited stranger, and again my expectation was dis-
appointed. His delivery is drowsy. Meantime I have
begun this journal.
" I have long felt a desire for a more serious interview
with Kant, but could find no means of bringing this about.
At last I hit upon the plan of writing a ' Critique of all
* " Fichte's Life and Literary Correspondence," by Immanuel Hermann
von Pichte, published in 1830-1831. TB.
128 RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY IN GERMANY.
Revelation/ and of presenting it to him instead of a letter
of introduction. I made a beginning with it about the
thirteenth, and have since worked at it without inter-
mission. On the eighteenth of August I at last sent my
finished work to Kant, and on the twenty-fifth paid him
a visit in order to hear his opinion of it. He received me
with the most marked kindness, and appeared very well
satisfied with my dissertation. We did not come to any
close philosophical discourse. With regard to my philo-
sophical doubts, he referred me to his ' Critique of Pure
lieason,' and to the court chaplain, Schulz, whom I shall
at once find out. On the twenty-sixth I dined with
Kant in the company of Professor Sommer, and I found
Kant to be a very pleasant and very intellectual man. I
now for the first time recognised in him traits worthy of
the great intellect that has found embodiment in his
writings.
" On the twenty-seventh I brought this journal to a
close, after completing the excerpts from Kant's lectures
on anthropology, lent to me by Herr von S. I also make
a resolution henceforth regularly to continue this journal
every evening before going to ted, and to record therein
everything of interest that occurs to me, but especially
noting all characteristic traits and observations.
"The twenty-eighth; evening. Yesterday I began to
revise my Critique, and fell upon right good and profound
ideas, which, however, made me unhappily conscious that
my first treatment of the subject was exceedingly super-
ficial. To-day I was desirous of continuing the new line
of investigation, but found myself so carried away by my
imagination that I have not been able to do anything all
day. In my present position this is, unfortunately, not to
be wondered at I have calculated that, counting from
to-day, my means of subsistence will not suffice me here
for more than fourteen days. I have, it is true, already
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY IN GERMANY. 129
experienced the like embarrassment, but it was in my own
country ; and, besides, with increase of years and a more
acute sense of honour, the case is always a harder one.
I have formed no resolution, nor can form any. To Pastor
Borowski, to whom Kant addressed me, I shall not reveal
my situation : if I reveal it to any one, it will be to no
other than to Kant himself.
" On the twenty-ninth I visited Borowski, in whom I
found a truly good and honourable man. He made me a
proposal of a situation, but it is not yet quite an assured
one ; and besides, it is one for which 1 have no great liking.
At the same time, by his frankness of manner he extorted
from ine the admission that it was urgent for me to obtain
an appointment. He advised me to see Professor W .
Work has been an impossibility for me. On the following
day I did in fact call on W , and afterwards visited
the court chaplain, Schulz. The prospects held out by the
former are very uncertain ; still he spoke of a tutorship
in Courland, which certainly nothing but the direst neces-
sity will induce me to accept ! Later, I went to the house
of the court chaplain, where I was at first received by
his wife. Her husband by and by appeared, but he was
absorbed in mathematical circles. Afterwards, when he
understood more distinctly who I was, Kant's recom-
mendation rendered him very friendly. He has an
angular Prussian countenance, but the very spirit of
loyalty and good-heartedness shines through its features.
I also made the acquaintance at his house of Herr Braun-
lich, and of his charge, Count Danhof, of Herr Biittner,
the court chaplain's nephew, and of a young savant of
Niirnberg, Herr Ehrhard, a youth of good and excellent
parts, though wanting in manners and without knowledge
of the world.
" On the first of September I formed a decided resolu-
tion, which I wished to communicate to Kant. A situa-
130 RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY IN GERMANY.
tion as tutor, however regretfully I might be obliged to
accept it, is not to be had, and the uncertainty of my
position hinders me from working with freedom of inind,
and from profiting by the instructive intercourse of my
friends. I must away, then, back to my own country!
The small loan of which I stand in need for this purpose
may perhaps be obtained through the mediation of Kant ;
but as I was in the act of going to him with the object of
declaring my intention, courage failed me. I decided to
write to him. For the evening I was invited to the house
of the court chaplain, where I spent a very pleasant
evening. On the second I finished my letter to Kant and
despatched it."
Despite the remarkableness of this letter, I cannot bring
myself to give it here. I fancy the red blood is mounting
to my cheeks, and I feel as though I were relating in the
presence of strangers the most shamefaced miseries of my
own family. In spite of my striving after French urbanity,
in spite of my philosophic cosmopolitanism, old Germany,
with all its Philistine sentiments, still holds its place in
my bosom. Enough, I cannot transcribe this letter, and
merely relate this much : Immanuel Kant was so poor
that, notwithstanding the pathetic, heart-rending tone of
this letter, he could lend Johann Gottlieb Fichte no
money. But the latter showed no trace of ill-humour On
that account, as may be gathered from the language of
his journal, from which I continue to quote :
" I was invited to dine with Kant on the third of Sep-
tember. He received me with his usual cordiality, telling
me, however, that he had not as yet formed any resolution
as to my proposition ; that he was not in a position to do
so for a fortnight. What amiable frankness! For the
rest, he started objections to my plans, which betrayed
that he was not sufficiently acquainted with our position
in Saxony. . . . During all these days I have done nothing.
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY IN GERMANY. 131
I will, however, set to work again, and simply leave the
rest to God. The sixth : I was asked to visit Kant, who
proposed to me the disposing of my manuscript on ' The
Critique of all Kevelation* to the publisher Hartung,
through the intervention of Pastor Borowski. ' It is well
written/ said he, when I spoke of revising it. Is this the
case ? And yet it is Kant that says so ! For the rest, he
declined the object of my first request. On the tenth I
dined with Kant. Nothing said about our affair. Master
of Arts Gensichen was there, and, though only general, the
conversation was in part very interesting. Kant's dis-
position towards me remains quite unchanged. . . . The
thirteenth : I was anxious to work to-day, and yet I get
nothing done. I am overcome by dejection. How will
this end ? How will it be with me eight days hence ?
My money will then be quite exhausted."
After much wandering about, after a long sojourn in
Switzerland, Fichte at last finds a settled position at Jena,
and from this time dates his period of splendour. Jena
and Weimar, two little Saxon towns lying within short
distance of each other, were then the central points of
the intellectual life of Germany. At Weimar were the
court and poetry ; at Jena, the university and philosophy.
There were the greatest poets, here the most learned men
of Germany. In the year 1794 Fichte commenced his
lectures at Jena. The date is significant, and explains
the spirit of his writings at this period, as well as the
tribulations to which he was henceforth exposed, and to
which four years later he succumbed. For in the year
1798 were raised those accusations of atheism that
drew down upon him insufferable persecutions, and
occasioned his departure from Jena. This, the most
noteworthy event in the life of Fichte, possesses also a
general significance, and we cannot pass it over in silence.
I 3 2 RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY IN GERMANY.
Here, too, is naturally the place to speak of Fichte's views
concerning the nature of God.
In the periodical called The Philosophical Journal, at
that time edited by himself, Fichte published an article
entitled " Development of the Notion of Religion/' sent
to him by a certain Forberg, a schoolmaster at Saalfield.
To this article Fichte added a short explanatory disserta-
tion, under the title, " On the Ground of our Belief in a
Divine Government of the World."
Both articles were suppressed by the Government of
the Electorate of Saxony, under the pretext that they
were tainted with atheism. Simultaneously there was
despatched from Dresden a requisition to the court of
Weimar enjoining upon it the serious punishment of Pro-
fessor Fichte. The court of Weimar did not, it is true,
permit itself to be misled by such a demand; but as
Fichte on this occasion committed the gravest blunders,
amongst others that of writing an " Appeal to the Public "
without the sanction of official authority, the Government
of Weimar, offended at this step and importuned from
other quarters, had no alternative but to administer a
mild reproof to the professor who had imprudently ex-
pressed his views. Fichte, however, considering himself
in the right, was unwilling to submit to such reproof, and
left Jena. To judge from his letters written at this time,
he was especially piqued at the conduct of two persons,
whose official positions lent much weight to their voice in
this affair ; these two persons were His Eeverence the
President of the Consistorial Council, Herr von Herder,
and His Excellence the Privy Councillor, Herr von
Goethe; but both are sufficiently excusable. It is
pathetic to read in the posthumous letters of Herder how
the poor man was embarrassed by the candidates of theo-
logy, who, after studying at Jena, came before him at
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY IN GERMANY. 133
Weimar to undergo examination as Protestant preachers.
About Christ the Son he no longer dared to put a single
question ; he was glad enough to have their mere acknow-
ledgment of the existence of the Father. As for Goethe,
he expresses himself in his Memoirs, regarding this occur-
rence, to the following effect :
" After Reinhold's departure from Jena, an event justly
considered a great loss for the University, the appoint-
ment of successor to him was rashly, even audaciously,
conferred on Fichte, who in his writings had manifested
a certain grandeur, though not perhaps the requisite tact
for dealing with the most important topics of morality
and politics. He was a man of as strong a personality
as had ever been known, and, considered in their higher
aspects, there was nothing censurable in his views ; but
how could he maintain himself on a footing of equality
with a world that he regarded as his own created pos-
session ?
" The hours that he desired to set apart during week-
days for his public lectures being objected to, he under-
took to hold on Sundays the prelections regarding which
objections were raised. The lesser adverse circumstances
and the greater obstacles arising from these had scarcely
been smoothed down and adjusted, when the assertions of
Professor Fichte concerning God and sacred things (about
which he would have done better to have maintained
profound silence) attracted in outside circles troublesome
observation.
" Fichte had ventured in his Philosophical Journal to
express himself about God and sacred things in a manner
that seemed contradictory to the language customarily
employed in dealing with such mysteries. He was called
in question for it ; his defence did not improve matters, for
it was undertaken with passion and without any sus-
picion how well disposed towards him people here were,
134 RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY IN GERMANY.
although they knew what interpretation to put on his
ideas and language an interpretation of his opinions
that could not indeed be explained to him in crude
words, just as little as he could be brought to under-
stand how help might be afforded him in the kindliest
spirit. Discussion for and against, doubts and assertions,
confirmations and resolutions, surged about the university
in many-sided uncertain discourse : there was talk of
ministerial remonstrance, of nothing short of a public
reprimand which Fichte might have to expect. There-
upon, throwing aside all moderation, he considered him-
self justified in addressing to the ministry a violent
letter, in which, assuming the certainty of proceedings
being taken against him, he haughtily and vehemently
declared that he would never submit to such treatment ;
that he preferred, without more ado, to quit the university,
in which case he would not do so alone, as several other
influential teachers were in accord with him to leave
the place.
" As a result of this step, all friendly intentions that
had been aroused on his behalf were now restrained, nay,
even paralysed. No expedient, no compromise, was now
possible, and the gentlest measure that could be adopted
was to dismiss him without delay. Then, for the first
time, after the affair was beyond remedy, Fichte per-
ceived the turn his friends had sought to give the affair,
and he was forced to regret his precipitation, whilst we
had reason to compassionate him."
Have we not here his very self, the ministerial Goethe
with his conciliations and prudent reticences ? In reality
he censures Fichte only for having said what he thought,
and for not having said it with the customary disguises
of expression. He does not find fault with the thought,
but with the word. That deism had been annihilated in
the world of German philosophy was, as I have already
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY IN GERMANY. 135
said, a secret known to every one ; a secret, however, that
must not be proclaimed on the housetops. Goethe was
as little a deist as Fichte ; for he was a pantheist But
his very position on the heights of pantheism enabled
Goethe with his sharp eyes to perceive very clearly the
untenableness of the Fichtean philosophy, and his gra-
cious lips could not forbear to smile at what he saw. To
the Jews (and every deist is, after all, a Jew) the doc-
trine of Fichte was an abomination : to the great pagan
it was only a folly. The "great pagan" is, you must
understand, the name bestowed on Goethe in Ger-
many. Yet this name is not quite appropriate. The
paganism of Goethe is wonderfully modernised. His
vigorous heathen nature manifests itself in his clear
penetrating conception of all external facts, of all forms
and colours ; but Christianity has endowed him also with
a profounder intelligence. Christianity, in spite of his
militant antipathy towards it, has initiated him into the
mysteries of the spiritual world; he has drunk of the
blood of Christ, and this has made him comprehend the
most secret voices of nature, like Siegfried, the hero of the
"Nibelungen," who understood the language of the birds the
instant that his lips were moistened by a drop of the slain
dragon's blood. It is a remarkable thing that Goethe's
pagan nature should have been so thoroughly pervaded
by our modern sentimentality, that the antique marble
of his temperament should have pulsated with so much
modern feeling, and that he should have sympathised as
deeply with the sufferings of young Werther as with the
joys of an ancient Greek god. The pantheism of Goethe
differed, therefore, very widely from that of paganism.
To express my ideas briefly : Goethe was the Spinoza of
poetry. The whole of Goethe's poetry is animated by the
same spirit that is wafted towards us from the writings
of Spinoza. That Goethe paid undivided allegiance to
136 RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY IN GERMANY.
the doctrine of Spinoza is beyond doubt. At any rate, he
occupied himself with it throughout his life ; in the in-
troductory passages of his Memoirs, as in the concluding
volume recently published, he has frankly acknowledged
this to be the case. I cannot now recollect where I have
read that Herder, losing his temper at finding Goethe
perpetually engaged with Spinoza's works, once exclaimed,
" If Goethe would just for once take up some other Latin
book than one of Spinoza's ! " But this applies not only
to Goethe ; quite a number of his friends, who afterwards
became more or less celebrated as poets, devoted them-
selves at an early period of their lives to pantheism ; and
this doctrine assumed a practical form in German art
before it attained to supremacy amongst us as a philo-
sophic theory. Even in Fichte's time, when idealism
was flourishing most sublimely in the domain of philo-
sophy, in the region of art it was being violently de-
stroyed, and there had already begun in Germany that
celebrated revolt in art a revolt not yet terminated
which traces its origin to the conflict of Romanticism with
the ancient Classical E^gime.
Our first Romanticists were, in fact, moved by a panthe-
istic instinct, which they did not themselves comprehend.
The sentiment, which they mistook for a yearning towards
the Catholic mother Church, was of deeper origin than they
suspected. Their veneration and affection for the tradi-
tions of the Middle Ages, for the popular beliefs, the
diablerie, the sorcery, and the witchcraft of former times,
all this was a suddenly reawakened, though uncompre-
hended, predilection for the pantheism of the old Ger-
mans, and, in its foully stained and spitefully mutilated
form, what they really loved was the pre-christian reli-
gion of their ancestors. I must here recall what was said
in the first part of this book, where I showed how Chris-
tianity absorbed the elements of the old Germanic religion,
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY IN GERMANY. 137
how, after undergoing the most outrageous transforma-
tion, these elements were preserved in the popular beliefs
of the Middle Ages in such a way that the old worship of
nature came to be regarded as mere wicked sorcery, the
old gods as odious demons, and their chaste priestesses as
profligate witches. From this point of view the aberra-
tions of our earliest Komanticists can be more leniently
judged than is usually the case. They wished to restore
the Catholicism of the Middle Ages, for they felt that in
this Catholicism there still survived many sacred recollec-
tions of their first ancestors, many splendid memorials of
their earliest national life. It was these mutilated and
defiled relics that attracted the sympathies of the Koman-
ticists, and they detested a Protestantism and a Liberalism
whose aim was to destroy these relics and to efface the
whole Catholic past.
I shall return, however, to this subject. At present it
is sufficient merely to mention that pantheism began in
Fichte's time to force its way into German art ; that even
Catholic Romanticists unconsciously followed this ten-
dency, and that Goethe was its foremost spokesman.
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